[asimov (John)]

ED-2 9.5mm eyepiece review

Tested using F8 achromatic refractor =126X



On-Axis sharpness: I found this to be good to excellent on Jupiter & stars.

Off-Axis Sharpness: Off-Axis it performed quite well. Good clean sharp focus. Slight anstigmatism on stars visible at the last 90-95% AFOV.

Contrast: Fairly dark back-ground on DSOs. Jupiters dark regions & the GRS more readily visible than some of my more up-market EPs. Did a respectable job in the contrast department.

Field flatness: Focusing on an object On-Axis & letting it drift to the edge of the field, I found a little de-focusing was apparent. Better than some of my other EPs. I found this to be not bad.

Ligh Transmission: I found this to be ok. I could Probably compare this to a Vixen LV for light transmission.

Chromatic Aberrations: As this test was conducted in an F8 achromatic refractor, I am not in a good position to judge in this area. Suffice to say it was no worse than any other eyepice I own. Using the aperture mask on jupiter, very little chromatic aberration was visible.

Eye Relief & comfort: I found the eye relief to be sufficient for me. IE: I did not have to roll the eye-cup back. If I had to guess, I would say it was between 10-15mm. If you wear glasses this EP may not be suitable, although rolling the cap back may be successful. This eyepiece does have a slight kidney bean problem. But I would say it was not overly annoying. Takes all of 30 seconds to learn where to position your eye for optimal results.

Ghosting: Nil.

Scatter: Better than most of my up-market EPs on Jupiter.

Field Stop Condition: I saw no 'ring of colour' around the field stop.

I also positioned the half moon just out of the FOV. The light grey colour in the FOV was evenly illuminated. I saw no long bright spikes of light spearing across the FOV as I see in some of my EPs.

Build Quality: Looks ok to me, Although at a quick glance you can tell it's not a $300 EP. The only thing that lets it down slightly is the cheap chrome job done on The barrel. It has a safety under-cut. It fits in the focuser slightly loose, with a deflection of approx .75mm when doing up the retaining screw. The 'blackening' job done on it is not up to standard. IE: The inner barrel thread where a filter might screw on is not black enough.

It looks to me to have the built-in barlow system. Somewhat similar to the LV in design. With the LVs you can take the barlow off.....With the ED-2....Just don't do it! You'll have elements flying all over the place if your not extremely careful. Not recommended.

Summing up: The ED-2 kept up with some of my better eyepieces which incidentally, I paid 3X as much for on some of them. Not bad for $80 AUD.

Having NOT tested this EP in a fast F5 system as yet, I can only say this EP is quite ok in my F8 telescope. Weather permitting, I will conduct the same tests in my F5 newt soon.