Saxon Cielo HD 60º eyepieces

[MortonH]

Just noticed these on Astro Anarchy. Looks like a copy of the Celestron X-Cel LX line.

[Wavytone]

Hi Morton,

I'm not sure if you're aware of this... quite frequently the remainders from production runs made by other companies - notably Vixen - end up being rebranded as "Saxon".

Astro gear in China is typically made in huge batches then resold by the big brands - Synta, Vixen etc. Product sales typically follow a bell-curve - rising then slowly falling over a number of years, with perhaps another manufacturing run or two.
But at the end the remaining inventory that isn't selling is flogged off to clear the warehouse for new stuff, sold to the likes of Saxon, and rebranded.

Another aspect is that some of these items sold off under no-name brands are actually the dregs that didn't pass the quality checks - eg. cosmetically OK but optically below par. This happens for example with some of the small maks in the 90-127cm aperture range, where there are a plethora of cheap-ass brands.

[brian nordstrom]

:thumbsup: If they are anything like the old ED ' Epic ' line they will be a nice eyepiece all round , probably with way better coatings tho .

Like comparing my long sold 102mm Celestron from the mid 90's to the new Saxon 102 I have now , a much brighter and sharper image probably due most to the coatings , but also the Chinese have also come a long :eyepop: way in optic figuring and polishing since those bad old days .

Brian.


edit , On reading Nicks reply I would believe that just on the image my 102mm Saxon ( Chinese Vixen spec ? ) gives , after a bit of colimation its very , very good

[MortonH]

Interesting. I noticed that the Saxon Cielo line includes 4.5mm and 6.5mm which aren't found in the Celestron X-Cel line but do appear in the Meade HD-60 line. Of course it's possible that they're optically the same as the X-Cel 5mm and 7mm and the difference is just marketing.

[JeniSkunk]

As a beginner to astronomy, I've found that these Saxon eyepieces are a great step up in quality, in comparison to the stock eyepieces supplied with the SkyWatcher Heritage 130P, or what's in the the basic SkyWatcher eyepiece and filter kit.
So far, I have the 12mm and 6.5mm. I'd definitely like to get the 25mm. Not so sure about the 9mm and 18mm as I can't see where I'd make use of them. The 4.5mm and 2.5mm would likely be far too powerful for my little telescope.