Celestron Xcel vs es vs pentax

[expon (Jas)]

Hi


A few weeks ago I bought some eyepieces, a few GSO superviews 42mm and 15mm, TMB planetary 6mm and a 25mm ceatron Xcel.

I have only used them from My house in Melbourne so the TMB hasn't exactly impressed but more than by no fault of its own. The GSO are nice but when I compare to the Xcel, they are junk. The colour and sharpness of the Xcel is amazing but I would like to know if anyone has experience with it and some ES pieces or perhaps the Pentax xf types. I have been wanting to get the xf 12mm and an ES 18mm but they are double the price and if there isn't much noticeable difference I might try to angle for some xcels.


Thanks for reading.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Pentax > ES > Celestron

[MortonH]

The GSOs are very much entry level eyepieces. From what I've read you will see a good jump in quality with the Celestron Xcel line. For a bit more money the Explore Scientific ones are the best value out there in my opinion.

[Wavytone]

I have tried three Celestron Xcel's - 8, 12 and 25mm though I only had the chance to try them critically against some bright stars on a Celestron 9.25" f/10 SCT. In short: very similar to the old Vixen LV's, in that they:

- have good eye relief around 20mm;
- are bright and contrasty,
- lack noticeable flare or internal reflections on bright objects,
- display some pincushion distortion
- a slightly larger field of view (60 degrees) than budget eyepieces (typically 45-50 degrees);
- no noticeable coloration on Jupiter or the moon.

The only downside I found is that two of the eyepieces I tried had a hint of lateral colour when a bright star was pushed to one edge of the eyepiece, but were sharp on the opposite side; and rotating the eyepiece confirmed the aberration was in the eyepiece, not the scope. This suggests a smidgen of wedge error or decentering in one of the lenses, HOWEVER the amount was small and most observers would never notice it.

I didn't have a chance to try with a fast Newtonian or refractor so can't comment on whether they are a good match for that type of scope.

They ARE a good midrange eyepiece and compared well against my set of Vixen LVW's. Also you'd have to wonder why the ES 68 degree series are so huge for just another 8 degrees in the apparent FoV.