BST 5mm UWA EP

[JayTee]

I have decided that I am deficient in the sub-10mm range in my arsenal. I'm looking at the BST UWA 5mm EP for my Celestron CR-150. Will this be better than barlowing my X-Cel LX 9mm?

Additionally, is there a 4-6mm sub-$100 EP upon which you are very keen?

Link: https://agenaastro.com/bst-1-25-uwa-pla ... e-5mm.html

Curious minds want to know.

Thanks,

[davesellars]

I have the 4mm version of this - and it's OK. It does lose sharpness and contrast to higher end eyepieces imho. I wonder if you'd be better off with something like the ES 3x focal extender to use with your 9, 12, 15 and 18mm eyepieces which would give you 3, 4, 5 and 6mm effectively.

[Bigzmey]

I would rather pay a bit more and get X-Cel LX 5mm which are on sale now

https://agenaastro.com/celestron-5mm-x- ... 93421.html

Or post a wanted on CN/AM for X-Cel LX 5mm, Meade HD-60 4.5mm, Vixen SLV 5mm or 6mm

BCO 6mm is great planetary performer if you don't mind short eye relief.

[Lady Fraktor]

https://agenaastro.com/vixen-6mm-npl-pl ... piece.html

[Bigzmey]

https://agenaastro.com/vixen-6mm-npl-pl ... piece.html

3mm eye relief, gonna be painful.

[Lady Fraktor]

3mm is huge! Real eyepieces are worn like jeweler loupes!

[OzEclipse]

Hi JayTee,

At low powers, edge correction is the issue but when you get to short focal lengths, quality matters even more than at low powers. I went through several 2nd hand trial eyepieces before biting the bullet and buying a Pentax XW5. This was after comparing an XW5 to my 5mm eyepieces. They are not bad eyepieces, but the XW's are in a different class. A pair of used XW 5 & 10mm's came up for around USD230 each. I think you won't get much change out of USD400 in CONUS for a new XW. I would recommend that you go down a similar premium eyepiece path for the high mag end if you can afford it.

However, if you want a midrange eyepiece, I have two I am about to put up for sale on an Australian Astro site. I normally wouldn't sell internationally but if you are interested in one of them, I'm willing to ship international. I have a Baader Hyperion 5mm and a Meade Series 4000 4.7mm. If either of these interest you, pm me. I don't know how they compare to the newer eyepieces you are considering.

cheers
Joe

[Bigzmey]

Hi JayTee,

At low powers, edge correction is the issue but when you get to short focal lengths, quality matters even more than at low powers. I went through several 2nd hand trial eyepieces before biting the bullet and buying a Pentax XW5. This was after comparing an XW5 to my 5mm eyepieces. They are not bad eyepieces, but the XW's are in a different class. A pair of used XW 5 & 10mm's came up for around USD230 each. I think you won't get much change out of USD400 in CONUS for a new XW. I would recommend that you go down a similar premium eyepiece path for the high mag end if you can afford it.

However, if you want a midrange eyepiece, I have two I am about to put up for sale on an Australian Astro site. I normally wouldn't sell internationally but if you are interested in one of them, I'm willing to ship international. I have a Baader Hyperion 5mm and a Meade Series 4000 4.7mm. If either of these interest you, pm me. I don't know how they compare to the newer eyepieces you are considering.

cheers
Joe

XWs are great performers (I have a set ), but for the price of one XW you can by a complete set of Baader Orthos + good barlow, which offer the same (or even better) on-axes performance as XWs. So, for a casual observer with GoTo mount XWs might be an overkill.

Like you I went through quite few EP models before graduating to XWs, but I feel this is the right way to go. If I would jump on XWs as a beginner it would grossly outstretch my astronomy budget at that time and instead of enjoying my time with XWs like I do now, I would have been sweating that I burned whole lot money for no good reason. On the other hand I would be extremely happy if someone would have pointed me towards Baader Orthos when I was a beginner.

[The Wave Catcher]

I don’t have any advice for you but I can say that I love my Astro-Tech 5 mm Paradigm Dual ED. It has 60 degrees of field of view and very good eye relief. Images are clean and sharp all the way to the edge of the field in both my f/4.5 and f/7 refractor telescopes.

https://www.astronomics.com/astro-tech ... al-ed.html