Some undercuts are better than others. TeleVue and GSO have a flared lower lip which improves extraction.



My Meade collection is fairly recent, years ago I often came close to buying a set of the Japanese ones but never did. Meade and Bresser now use JOC glass though so they should be OK. I like Meade Plossls, nice smooth brass drawtubes!



The Bressers above are five element, sixty degree FOV.



It's difficult to beat GSO Plossls for the money.



I even have some TV's. I have other Plossls, most of them are in pieces lol.

You might find this useful: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/100881/Meade-4500.html

 

Thanks! I just saw the green lettering and presumed! I think I'm being programed. And need better glasses!

Never seen green Meade's before. Interesting!

 

Yep, I believe these are the only Meade EPs with green lettering on them.

There was a newer run of these that added rubber grips and rubber eyecups, when production shifted to Taiwan. This were the original Japan smoothies.

 

What do you think about GSO products these days? Not just their eyepieces - but the myriad different astronomy goodies they now manufacture.

Bear in mind - Guan Sheng Optics (GSO) underwent a major change a few years back. It used to be a gamble buying GSO, but the change they did included lowering their prices - and increasing their quality tremedously.

As an aside, a few years ago Meade would give you a metal/foam case with their full-set of 3000-series Plössl EP's - 9 eyepieces, if bought a telescope. I was buying an AR5 anyways. So they shipped me the Plössls & case. I read an ad from a pastor of a church youth group hoping to buy a few Plössls.

I sold them to him for $99.00 with shipping. In other words - I never cared much for Meade eyepieces. But older Japanese one's may have been excellent! I'd jump at the chance to try them. A great find, C.P. I'd hang onto those!

 

I haven't tried GSO eyepieces aside from the 50mm GSO SuperView I bought for my 8" SCT. I have also heard that GSO Plossls are about the best bang for the buck. Might be interesting to do a comparison.

I'm very much interested in the new Explore Scientific 52 degree long eye-relief "plossls". The big problem with plossls of course is how tight the eye relief gets the shorter the focal length. Solving that problem while maintaining view quality would be pretty awesome.

 

I thought you might like the diagram below. I have a copy on my wall here in Podunk:





Enjoy!

D.

 

Those old Meade 3000 Plossls were (are) quite nice...and excellent performers.

 

I got
TV Pan 35mm
ES 25mm 2"inch 70* degree (got it on sale, it's OK)
ES 24mm 68*
ES 20mm 68*
TV Delos 14mm
Orion Expance 15mm (OK ep)
Astro-Tech 12mm flat Field ( Decent)
TV 11mm Plossl
ES 8.8mm 82*
Orion Expance 6mm
Meade UWA 5.5mm

Also have a box with some others, 25mm Plossls, 10 mm Plossls and some other EPs that came with scopes.
12mm Meade illuminated EP that is in the CG5 case

 

Looks to be a good collection, Tony. Clean, functional, and very good performers!

That's what counts!

 

Thanks Dave.

 

I am thinking of a ES 28mm

 

@sickfish, why not? If you can grow your collection.

I looked in Stellarium simulation and I found the ES 28mm 68d it too close to the ES 24mm 68d, (TFOV) The 28mm has 2" barrel and 1.82 degree TFOV against 1.55 degree for the 24mm with 1 1/4" tube. A difference of .27 degrees but I need to change the eyepiece extension tube from 1 1/4 to 2".

I would not get the 28mm because of that

 

I am looking at the simulation again.. for the Beehive Cluster.. (using my telescope setup) and I only find it's a target for 35, 34mm more then the 28mm or 24mm. I prefer the look of the cluster with the 28mm but both images are still pretty close.

 

Hey Neb & anyone else who might like learning these 'Tricks With Keys.'

I've note you write out small things like 'degree' to denote such as '68degree' and similar to say - 68°. Here's small Pdf. of Alt.Codes that covers quite a few. There's many others, in Pdf. format for convenience, available through a Google-search. Free, of course!

WindowsAltCodes.pdf

I keep this one as a short-cut on my desktop -

Alt. Codes of the World.pdf

Have fun w/ Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome!

Dave

 

Yeah, here's the thing; Stellarium simulation ... totally not accurate.

 

There you go again - piddling in peoples' Corn Flakes!

Nothings perfect, but if mathematical precision is all there is, let's head to The Louvre and set fire to it!

Stella's latest 'beta' - 0.90.0.15949 - is great! I've been enjoying both testing all it's latest additions. And simply using it to check on some things I've learning about.

Give it a shout! If you're not to busy teaching the Grenadier's to march in lock-step at the Palace for the Royal Wedding that is!

 

It doesn't matter where I piddle, Stellarium's simulation isn't accurate. Betas, junkware, scamware and rogueware never get intentionally downloaded on any computer I own. There's a reason for this.

There's a royal wedding?

 

Yeah I'm looking to fill the space between the 24mm and the 35mm
Maybe the ES 30mm, I don't know. Just thinking.

 

Yeah I'm looking to fill the space between the 24mm and the 35mm
Maybe the ES 30mm, I don't know. Just thinking.

Hemm well the ES 28mm is quite centered inside 24mm and 35mm, the ES 30mm too. The 30mm has much more TFOV then the 28mm but it's heavy like hell. I could not get it myself because of balancing issues on my equatorial mount, an easy one to disqualify for me. (34mm 68d was a better choice for me)

I looked at the difference of TFOV and the 30mm is competing directly with the Panoptic 35mm and with 4.5x power difference also. The 30mm has even more TFOV then the Panoptic.

Panoptic is 1600g and ES 30mm is 1007g. 600g less then the Panoptic that's quite a bit.

=====================
Option #1 - With limited budget, no actions required.
Wow that's interesting reflexion for me too I am not a collector of eyepieces, but I feel the wide field range is well covered with the 35 Panoptic and the ES24 mm (considering a limited budget). You could easily do nothing with the situation.

Option #2 - Replace the TV35mm
The 30mm ES seems like a better choice then the TV35mm because it has even more TFOV for wide fields and it's almost 600g less, wow!

If you don't like the 35mm you could sell it and get the 30mm instead, it's much lighter and has more TFOV, you would be well covered again for low power and also get a massive 82 AFOV instead of 68 AFOV.

Option #3 - Keep the TV35mm and add the ES30 and ES28 (Collector's choice)
From the point of view of a collector, the ES30mm and ES28mm have good reputation, you could get them both, keep the 35mm and be happy. there would be no harm really.

Conclusion:
If you don't like the 35mm, the choice is clear for me, I would go with choice #2 and skip the 28mm which can't compete wide fields with the 30mm and is too close to the 24mm.

I hope this helps ( it was fun to think.

 

Thanks Nebula
Like I said I am thinking about it.
I kinda like #3, really like the Pan.