Meade Series 5000 Super Wide Angle 28mm

4.0 28mm Meade SWA 5K

Good value/performance ratio, sharp optics, comfort/ease of use, blocks stray light well.

Bulky design, modest weight, edge of field performance, pincusion.

I used this eyepiece in both my 8" f6 dob (XT-8) and 12" f5 dob (GSO type). I really liked it and only got rid of it because I wanted to change up my focal lengths. Images were wonderful with very sharp stars in the central 80% of the field of view, slowly getting worse in the outer 20% in my f5 dob. I didn't have my Paracorr at the time, so I am not sure exactly what amount of that was simply coma. The view was surprisingly immersive and felt larger than in my Pentax XWs for some reason.

The biggest strengths of this eyepiece, however, are its comfort and shielding of extraneous light. Both are related to its large, easy-adjust eyecup. You simply press your eye into the eyecup which molds itself against your eyesocket and face. This makes eye positioning a breeze and does one of the best jobs I've seen of blocking out nearby streetlights when I'm observing in the suburbs. Eye relief feels about 14-15mm which is less than the stated relief, but still very comfortable.

The only things I didn't like were the large size of this eyepiece and its pincusion distortion which was quite noticeable when panning around large starfields. Overall, this eyepiece was a real pleasure to use and I would easily recommend it to others.