Orion Highlight Plossl 40mm

4.0 Orion Highlight Plossl 40mm

Fully multi-coated, not expensive, great appearance, Orion quality.

Heavy, narrow field of view, some tunnel effect.

The other night, I had a chance to use the very large Orion Highlight 40mm eyepiece in my 8” f/10 SCT and found it to be very nice.

The stars were sharp across the entire filed of view. This eyepiece has an apparent field of view of 43 degrees, which is somewhat smaller then your typical plossl of 50 degrees. I found no sea-gulling of stars along the edge and the contrast was excellent. Some false color was seen while viewing of the Moon but it was not that bad.

These go for $59.95 new, have a huge eye relief of 28mm and are fully multi-coated. The 28mm eye relief gave it a slight tunnel effect, but since I don't need eyeglasses it didn't bother me, or anyone else viewing with this eyepiece. It has a very soft eye guard, a really nice metal finish and has the typical set screw safety recess on the barrel. All in all, it is a nice eyepiece for under $60. This eyepiece was being used by its owner as a "finder" eyepiece and in role that it worked well. This was a pleasure to look through. Orion does have a nice 30 day return policy on any of its products.