I've heard good things about the Meade zoom. I'm pretty sure the Meade 4000 'Super Plossls' are actually made by GSO. I think the early Celestron Omni Plossls were made by GSO as well.

I'm also pretty certain the Sky-Watcher 'Super Plossls' and the Orion Sirius Plossls are both Synta made. I doubt there's much between GSO and Synta. My experience with GSO (TS Optics) Barlows is that they're very good. GSO, TS Optics, Sky-Watcher and Orion Plossls are all marketed here. Telescope House also has 'Revelation' (GSO) Plossls. The Revelation are probably the best priced on the market here. TS Optics Plossls and most of their Barlows/GPC's are pretty obviously GSO, although they rebrand Barsta products as well.

Ideally I wanted a decent 12.5mm Plossl to fill in the gap between the 15mm (83x) and 10mm (125x) Vixens in my grab'n'go Moon set. I would then have a set of five where I could work my way up and down from 83x, 100x, 125x, 156x and 208x with the Orion StarMax.



Unfortunately every 12.5mm Plossl seemed to incorporate the dreaded undercut defect. I can live with the Vixen NPL's wide shallow undercut and some others, but the aluminium barrelled deep undercut I can do without. I was even informed by one distributor that the Meade 4000 all had undercuts! In the end I went for the Meade 12.4mm 'Super Plossl' (which actually has no undercut). I'm pretty certain it's GSO. It seems decent anyway. I'm seriously considering a pair of 26mm Meade 4000's for the bino now.

 

Ray:

The entire group of 8 - 24mm Zooms, under all different brand-names, draws criticism from a certain segment of our greater astro-community for one and the same "problem:" They have a rather narrow F.O.V. 40° - 60°mm. And some people consider this grounds for denouncing all Zoom's.

But if you want a nice, crisp, and clean view - they can't be beat! In my opinion. That's my favorite EP I carry for star-gatherings and community-outreach down-at-the-park. People thoroughly enjoy "Skydiving-on-the-Moon" with these. I have 2 myself. In a fluke, I managed to land a 8 - 24mm LV-Zoom by Vixen (which have a Lanthanum rare-earth lens-element - which translates to: $200ea. rather than the $70-ish price-range) for under $100. It beats having a pocketful of eyepieces to fumble about in-the-dark.

I also, finally, broke-down and bought a Baader Hyperion 8 24mm Mark III Zoom. It's magnificent! In fact, Baader just released it's new model - The Mark IV edition. It has no advantage for my uses. And you may be advised to prowl-around for the Mark III-model. Some dealer's should be offering LOWER prices on the Mark III's to clear old stock. Here's the III v. IV:




And Mark III:











I hope you're having decent weather down there. If so - please turn on your Giant FAN'S and blow it up here in Podunk.

Dave

 

That Baader zoom looks good, although I'd assume it was a tad heavy on an 80-90mm scope.

 

That's interesting Ray. I'll have to have a look at those screws myself. I was only talking with 365Astronomy the other day as I wanted to know if their 25mm GSO Plossls had undercuts. Unfortunately they do so I bought a pair of Meade 26mm GSO Plossls from Telescope House lol. 365Astronomy are pretty well known in the UK for having almost everything including the kitchen sink. Pity they didn't have Plossls without undercuts though!

 

Everywhere I turn lately, people are drooling over their BST eyepieces! Under which name they simply don't exist here in the US0A. In my experience, at least. So I took it upon myself to find them over here and get the names & sources in this here piece of realty. And I have same to share with any & all:

Two places are prominent - and one of them we are sitting in a branch of writing (me) from & reading (you) from: AgenaAstro. And Agena carries these with a different 'brand' on them. They are called 'Starguider' in Agena-speak. And here's the main-link to AgenaAstro:

http://agenaastro.com/

And a direct-link to these eyepieces is here:

http://agenaastro.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=+Starguider+Dual+ED

And for the other prominent outfit, we have Astronomics, which has always been very good to me in my dealings with them. In Astronomics these EP's are called: 'Paradigm Dual ED' eyepieces. So here's the 'front-door' to them:

https://www.astronomics.com/default.aspx

And for the these 'Paradigm Dual ED's', the direct-ink is here:

https://www.astronomics.com/vsearch.aspx?SearchTerm=Paradigm Dual ED eyepieces

And that's easy for them to say!

Anywho - both outfits have the same price ($60.00) listed. And I even referenced this price with those from the UK & Europa - and they were all about the same, when I checked the latest currency-exhange ratio's. Must be a 'Global-Conspiracy!!' Oh my!

I then did some hunting to try to figure out just what these were. At this price, my first guess was some variey of Plossl-EP with, maybe, an extra lens somewhere? Nope - I found the schematics on them. A Plossl has 4 lens-elements. And these weigh-in with 8 lens-elements! Hmmm...

So just what would these be called......?? Here's the 'blueprints'...er...'lensprint'...?



Was Al Nagler 'slumming' one day?





If anyone wants to provide just what these really are, or any other information on these much-acclaimed & inexpensive eyepieces. please jump in anytime!

And I'll drop off a gift to help anyone who would like to know about eyepieces and their schematics - and it's rather pretty too! I keep a copy on my wall (I am rather weird):



Don't ask me about the funky chart/pattern in the lower-right corner - I don't have a clue, either!

In conclusion: If you're looking for a very good & inexpensive EP - I'd be looking at these 'Starguiding-Paradigm's' first & 2nd!

Enjoy -

Dave

 

I'm fairly convinced 'BST' is some form of acronym or contraction of Barsta.



http://www.barsta.com/show_hdr.php?xname=MDA8V11&dname=OPFOR71&xpos=13

I've seen them under a variety of names in Europe and the US. Whether Barsta is the actual OEM is debatable. TS Optics market them as the NED series.



They look OK but the undercut puts me off. They have a fanatical cult following on some forums. I've never been one for Kool Aid though lol. I've read that the QC can be lacking with some of them. I've also read that they may be very similar to Sky-Watcher UWA's internally.

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen 'Starguiders' marketed as Olivon. I'm also pretty sure you'll have no difficulty finding their rebranded equivalents in the US. I have a feeling some US distributors market the TS Optics version.

Two things put me off them, apart from the occasional QC borker, the first is the undercut and the second is the soft plastic housing covering. At least two of the series have flared drawtubes, although that's worse than an undercut. The soft plastic covering degenerates over time and gets sticky to the touch. It happens with some binoculars.

 

Which explains, Ray, why I chased down the Astronomics-link!

Onwards & Upwards -

Dave

 

That lens loosening seems to be one of the main problems with the Starguiders. I've ordered a 14mm Bresser 'Plossl'. I'm curios to what it's like.



I'm pretty sure they're made by JOC.

 

I don't know much about Bresser to be honest.



http://www.bresser.de/en/Astronomy/Telescopes/

https://www.telescopehouse.com/eyepieces/bresser-eyepieces/bresser-60-plossls.html

I should think they have some with long eye relief.

 

Thanks Ray, I'll have a closer look at those I think.



The 14mm Bresser came today. I've daylight tested it and it seems quite sharp and bright in a small Mak. It's pretty well made. I'd guess the eye relief to be 11 - 13mm, which is quite comfortable for me. It's probably a modified Erfle or based on the Zeiss Astroplanokular. Maybe lol.

 

I've been wondering if Bresser might not be somehow affiliated with Meade over here in the US. Do you have any info on this, Mak? Some of the Bresser things look very much like a re-branded Meade.

As for that Bresser "Plossl," I'd also think it may be related to an Erfle. The 60° FOV pushes me to think so, too.

Now I'm curious too!

Dave

 

I think many five element 'Plossls' are similar to Erfle types.



Panoptics (Takahashi, TeleVue) were originally a development of the Plossl as well which explains the excellent contrast in the 19mm TeleVue.


~ The Evolution of the Astronomical Eyepiece, E.J. Hysom F.R.A.S.


There's definitely a Meade connection.

Bresser GmbH was founded by Josef Bresser in 1957.[1] The company began by specialising in the import and distribution of binoculars.[2] Rolf Bresser sold his father's business in 1999 to the American company Meade Instruments in Irvine, California, the company operating under Meade Instruments Europe GmbH until 2009, when it was acquired by former owner Rolf Bresser, its general manager, Helmut Ebbert, and Chinese manufacturer Jinghua Optical Electronics Co., Ltd. (JOC).[3]

In 2005 the Bresser Messier Line of fine telescopes for the intermediate astronomy passionate was launched.[4] In the US the distribution firm Bresser LLC was founded in 2010. ~ Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresser

I'm convinced Ningbo Sunny (Meade Instruments) source their optical glass and housings from JOC and GSO respectively. Although Meade, Bresser and GSO have different eyepiece series, their Plossls are incredibly similar. Meade have some odd focal length Plossls (6.4mm, 12.4mm, 26mm etc) but this could be a legacy thing as their Japanese sourced 'Super Plossls' were the same lengths.

From what I can see, Meade, Bresser, GSO, TS Optics and Revelation (Telescope House) Plossls are virtually the same thing. In my experience they'd give Synta (Celestron, Sky-Watcher, Orion) Plossls a run for their money.

 

Thanks for that, Mak! Interesting tale which ties-up some indicators. GSO v. Synta and such.

'til later -

Dave

 

You're welcome Dave. There is a lot of industrial secrecy about the ultimate origins of much optical equipment. I suppose it makes sense in a way. I'm pretty convinced my Orion 25mm Sirius Plossl is Synta and identical to its Sky-Watcher and Celestron equivalents. It has an undercut but the Sirius (now usually marketed without undercuts) is nearly twice the price of the equivalent Sky-Watcher here.



I've always wondered about these 6mm Celestron Plossls. The one on the right (above) and the left (below), although ostensibly both standard Celestron Plossls, are quite different to the 6mm Celestron Plossl next to it.



The one on the left (immediately above) has a brass/chrome draw tube, slightly different dimensions and the writing is painted or enamelled on the housing. As opposed to the newer 6mm Celestron Plossl on the right, which has an aluminium drawtube and silk screened writing, as is more common now. I always thought the brass/chromed drawtube Plossl was the better of the pair and quite good quality. I still have it but it seriously needs cleaning and I can't remove the drawtube. I've tried a vice and molegrips but all I ended up doing was trashing the eyeguard. I'm not sure what happened to the other 6mm Celestron lol. 6mm Barlowed to 3mm was a really useful size for lunar viewing for me. I eventually replaced them with a 6mm orthoscopic. Recently I've acquired a 6mm Vixen NPL.

I decided to do an inventory of all of my surviving and useable 4 element Plossls (not counting Masuyama clones like my 15mm Antares 'Plossl' or any other 5 element). I had others that are not on this list as they are either lost or BBAR (Borked Beyond All Repair). I now have 28 in total, including 3 bino pairs. That leaves 22 for cyclops observing with 3 of those having aluminium undercuts and only useful for diagonals/focusers without compression rings.

1/ 6mm Vixen NPL

2/ 6.4mm Meade

3/ 8mm Vixen NPL

4/ 8mm TeleVue

5/ 10mm Vixen NPL

6/ 10mm Orion Sirius

7/ 11mm TeleVue

8/ 12mm Celestron Omni

9/ 12.4mm Meade

10/ 13mm Celestron

11/ 15mm Celestron Omni

12/ 15mm Vixen NPL

13/ 15mm TeleVue (x2)

14/ 17mm Celestron

15/ 20mm TeleVue

16/ 25mm Vixen NPL

17/ 25mm Orion Sirius*

18/ 25mm TeleVue

19/ 26mm Meade (x2)

20/ 30mm Vixen NPL

21/ 32mm TeleVue

22/ 32mm Celestron*

23/ 32mm Baader BCO (x2)

24/ 40mm TeleVue

25/ 40mm Celestron*

Twenty eight in total including bino pairs.

Twenty two single EP’s.

Nineteen with no or no noticeable undercut problems.

Three with problematical undercuts*.

The 12 and 15mm Omni EP's and the 13 and 17mm Celestrons now have smooth drawtubes taken from a borked pair of AH ortho's and BCO's respectively. The 32mm Baader BCO's are actually Plossls although the other focal length BCO's are orthoscopics.