All Other: Generic Series 500 Plossl Eyepiece - 30mm

5.0 Another great eyepiece!

Well made; Good all around views; Good eye relief

None for the price

Like the 40mm, this is a very good eyepiece for general observation at low power. I tested the eyepiece on both my 100mm f/6 achromatic refractor and on a 102mm f/13.2 Mak-Cass. It performed admirably on both scopes. I tried it on a small selection of objects including nebulae, several open clusters, and on the moon. I must say that I was quite impressed that it was completely sharp across the entire field on both scopes.

Color was quite good and I could not detect any noticeable flaws. Mechanically, it appears to be well made.

It is virtually the same as the 40mm, except for the shorter focal length. Performance of both were virtually identical.

The only eyepiece that I could directly compare it to was a very old military surplus 30mm Erfle. Compared to the Erfle, the images were noticable brighter in the Plossl, but of course the Erfle won hands-down for the wider AFOV. Otherewise, they seemed fairly well matched. Eye relief was also quite good on the Plossl, but not on a match with the Erfle.

I would highly recommend this eyepiece for the price, especially if you don't need the extra AFOV of a widefield eyepiece.