Celestron E-Lux Series 25mm

2.0 Save your money for something better

Decent quality, cheap price, sharp

Small sweet spot, false color, NARROW Field of view

I have 2 of these eyepieces that I was wanting to use on a binoviewer.....One came with a scope, and the other I bought later. ((First let me say that one had different coatings (blue) from the other (green). I am not sure if this really affects the view, but it does illustrate why you should buy pairs of binoviewer eyepieces at roughly the same time!!))

First I must point out, I HAVE TO USE GLASSES FOR VIEWING (due to astigmatism)!! I used these E-Lux plossls in an F/8 Fluorite APO scope that, with a 2.5x Powermate brought it to about F/16 and with a 5x Powermate it became an F/40 scope. I found the eye relief to be great, the quality is good, and the coatings seem well applied. They do give sharp views with good contrast....I was happy UNTIL I compared these with the following eyepieces in a bit of a shootout: AGENA ASTRO WA 20mm 65 degree 4-element and WILLIAM OPTICS SWAN 20mm 72 degree 5-element.

The Celestron E-Lux can be bought for a cheap price, lower in fact that the other 2 eyepieces mentioned above, but you get what you pay for....most of the time. The E-Lux plossls had a rather small "sweet spot" where the image was good without any false color on the edges. Past this small zone, Saturn got blue and red fringes which were very annoying. Also, the Apparent Field of View (AFOV) is VERY small compared to the other 2 brands of eyepieces. Now, the plossl was good and sharp, but I found the HUGE field of view in the other eyepieces more pleasing, and if you want to just explore the stars or go star-hopping to find specific targets with a decent eyepiece, the small AFOV of the E-Lux makes this difficult!!

The SWAN 20 and the AGENA WA 20 both have some field curvature and the image gets "soft" near the edges, but I only saw this if I was REALLY looking for it with the scope at F/8. When I was just enjoying the view, this simply was not apparent. The bigger AFOV in these 2 eyepieces was amazing!! These wide angle eyepieces also had some false color, but it was hardly noticeable and certainly not enough to be annoying. They also seemed to have a larger sweet spot for clear, color-free, high-power views of the planets.

To sum up, if you are considering a true Plossl for sharp views (especially for a fast scope like F/6 or quicker), I would strongly recommend you get a better quality Plossl like an Orion Highlight or Celestron Omni (if still available) or one of the Plossls from GSO or AGENA (check reviews first). Of course, you could spend the money and get one of the "legendary" Plossls from TeleVue which are known to be sharp to the edge and are regarded as the best Plossls available, but, as usual, they COST MORE!!

If you are looking for a good starter eyepiece or a good binoviewer eyepiece in a medium to slow scope (perhaps a fast one too, but you should read reviews first), I would give STRONG CONSIDERATION to an eyepiece with higher magnification but a larger AFOV as this is simply an unbeatable combination (better contrast because the background gets darker...and bigger apparent field of view)! These would include the AGENA ASTRO or similar wide angle eyepieces.