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Nice review Mike,
I agree 100% with your comments Geoff, but the review does serve a purpose in informing people that the Series 500's are "not much" worse than the other crappy eyepieces so it may not be worth upgrading, unless you upgrade to something a little better than the cheap chinese/taiwanese offerings.
I have never done a side by side, but at different times have used the following:-
GSO Plossls
GSO Superviews
Synta Super Plossls (Orion Sirius Plossls),
UO orthos (standard volvano tops),
UO HD orthos
Celestron Ultimas
Televue Plossls
Brandon Orthoscopics,
Clave Plossls
Zeiss orthoscopics
Pentax SMC orthoscopic
Nikon orthoscopic
Takahashi LE
This is in respect of plossl, masuyama (5 element plossl) or othoscopic designs.
The differences between the bottom end and the top end are monumental and your analogy of a dirty windscreen and a clean windscreen was pretty close.
I think a more beneficial comparison and I know Mike was trying to arrange something here, would be to compare one of the budget eyepieces with a middle range product and a top end product.
For example the Synta Super Plossls although made in China are clearly superior to the GSO Plossls and are not that much more expensive between $20 and $30 per eyepiece and definately worth upgrading to IMO over the GSO Plossls, if you cannot afford to pay over $100 per eyepiece. The next step up would be to something like a TV Plossl, Celestron Ultima or UO HD ortho. I have owned all of these eyepieces at different times and the differences are very apparent at all levels.
I good comparison may be a 9mm GSO Plossl, compared to the 10mm Synta Super Plossl and the 9mm UO HD ortho. Another Option would be the 6mm GSO Plossl, the 6.3mm Synta Super Plossl and the 6mm UO HD ortho.
I would be happy to donate either my 6mm or 9mm UO HD ortho's for the comparison and also help Mike with the testing. As Mike and I are also testing other eyepieces at the minute another 3 would not be too much of a problem.
Does anyone in Sydney/Newcastle/Central Coast have a 6/9mm GSO Super Plossl and a 6.3mm/10mm Synta Super Plossl available that they are happy to loan us for the comparison, not necessarily from the 1 source ?
CS-John B
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