I have the Luminos 31mm and although the viewing experience has been good, I have increasingly relegated it to the dark region of my optics case due to the extra weight. With a DSLR, 2' prism diag, dew shield/heaters and a finderscope on board, I dont favor taxing the drive motors with that large 'soup can' if I dont need to. I am now strongly considering the 32mm SWAN as an alternative. Thanks for the well-ballanced, fair review. Your channel is fast becoming one of my favorite sources for unbiased reviews!
I have 3 luminos eyepieces I use with my 925 edgehd...which has a slower f10 (without my reducer I only use for astrophotography) .. the main issue I see people having is you need a big scope and a solid mount.... its big and heavy. But I love them. I think these eyepieces may have been made with sct in mind. Be a bit heavy for a dob.... but great with an sct, especially my edgehd, fov to me looks great.... I have a feeling the luminos was made with the edgehd sct scopes in mind. and Adjustable eye relief is fantastic.
Thank you so much for reviewing and comparing these two. I now have the Omegon SWAN and a Focal Reducer/Corrector for my SCT. BTW, as I didn't pay sufficient attention (totally on me) I now also have a 2-inch diagonal. Please continue the stellar work.
As a dob user the weight difference would be an instant dealbreaker for me. At 3x the weight of the SWAN the Luminos will almost certainly require counterweights, which in turn detracts from the simple 'grab n' go' joy of a small-to-medium sized dob!
A very good and fair review Bogdan. I picked up the 31mm Luminos EP second hand recently. I tried it the other day on my Evostar80, I found all the complaints you have with it. My mount is a manual tracker and i found as soon as the object drifted out of center of FOV all the problems surfaced. I also found i have to turn my head a lot more to get my eye in the sweet spot. I have yet to try it in my CPC1100 as i have not yet got a 2" diagonal for it yet.
@William Blakers Thanks for your feedback. I'm curious as well to see if the Luminos works better in telescopes with longer focal lengths like your CPC1100. Hopefully it does. Clear skies!
This is such an informative channel, new subsciber! Recently I've been doing more and more visual astronomy after I did astrophotography for 3,5 years straight. I sold my visual dobs to pay for the expenses, but I've bought a 90mm Mak to do some lunar, solar and planetary viewing. Planning to buy a bigger scope (8/9.25"SCT to put on my HEQ5 Pro) next year. I bought a 7-21mm zoom eyepiece from Orion, a 10mm Ortho from Baader and a 13mm Hyperion from Baader. I do have experience with the Baader Classic Ortho's from before, they are fantastic and should at least be able to rival your 9mm Delite on planets in your Mak too. The on-axis performance (contrast, sharpness) in a good Ortho is almost unmatched, and they are pretty cheap as well. They only lack a little bit in eye relief and AFOV, but it's not too bad. Highly recommended!
@Jens Lankamp Thank you for subscribing and for your feedback. I haven't had the chance to test one of Baader's classic Orthos until now. I have heard good things about them though. I'll have to give them a try sometime. Clear skies!
I have the Apertura (just like the SWAN) and consider it one of my best quality eye pieces. I dont have the budget for the Luminos or TeleVue eye pieces!
An excellent review very balanced and it go's to show u don't need to spend big to get a good view of the night sky, i don't have either as I'm a baader guy just got the 12.5mm (excellent) however Im allways instead in the mid range as I believe that is where the best value is, not quite as good as the top class, tele vue maybe,🤷♂️ but close is good enough and if ur spending top money u wanna get the best u can👍
@Iornaz1975 That is more due to the phone camera. In reality the center donut wasn't as noticeable. The outer ring was, however, much more noticeable with the naked eye.
The luminos is well under $300 in the USA. But the luminous has known issues. The older axiom LX that looked the same, is much better so buying used is the way to go. They were made by JOC, and were the same eyepieces optically.as the meade series5000 UWA, and ES82. The 7mm and 6.7 were the same, the 8.8 and the 10 were the same. The 14 and 15 were the same, the 18 and 19 were the same, the 23 and 24 was the same, and the 30 and 31 were the same. Telescope companies tend to use numbers slightly different than the actual focal length to keep them in line with their previous lines, like the 8.8, 6.7 and 14mm meade series 4000, and 15, 19 and 23mm axiom.
@ColdWarWarriors Interesting point! I'll have to test it with an SCT/Mak the next time I get the chance and see how much of a difference the f ratio makes.
All eyepieces work at F10, there are cheap 30mm 80 degree eyepieces that are clones of the old Widescan eyepiece that have had many names that work at f8 and above and cost less than the SvBony 34mm 70 degree eyepiece. When an eyepiece costs almost the same as Explore Scientific 30mm 82 degree eyepiece, it is right to test them on fast focal ratio telescopes when they come with a premium price tag. Celestron are ripping off people of their hard earned cash with these. Had they been half the price of ES82 30 eyepiece, these eyepieces wouldn't have such a bad reputation.
Celestron stc hd range are slow and have field flatteners built into them. Perhaps the short comings of the Lum won't be an issue with them. its a lot of money to find out.
Does anyone know where to find the Omegon/Apertura eyepieces in Canada? Or is there anything else comparable in both quality and price? I have the 15mm Luminos with an f5 dob, and it's fantastic, but it seems like I should steer clear of the 31mm offering.
I always enjoy your informative reviews 👍 I have an Omegon SWAN 38mm and Omegon Panorama 21mm and they seem quite good, but when viewing during the day they exhibit a brownish ring around the edge. I’m told this is normal. I’ve also ordered a 27mm Televue Panoptic, but the expected delivery of 2 weeks has changed to 3 months after placing the order, so yet to make a comparison. Then again, whilst this region usually has clear skies, it has been far too hazy recently for good viewing, so not missed much. I guess though that the point I’m getting to, is that whilst your testing of the celestron helps us viewers to make good choices, Im surprised for such a high cost that you didn’t just go for a televue?
@Alan price Thanks! Interesting, haven't tested the SWAN during the day yet. I'll have to do that. Hopefully there won't be any other delays to the Panoptic's delivery. As for an alternative from Tele Vue to the Luminos, they are pretty pricey here in Germany. The 31mm Nagler T5 costs 960 Euros. Maybe the 30mm 82° from explore scientific could be a good mid-range option and a significant step up from the SWAN. I'll have to test that in the future. Until then I'll just enjoy the SWAN.
@@BogdanDamian ah, yes…. I hadn’t realised the televue was so expensive, as the TV eye pieces I’ve been buying have tended to be in the €450 price bracket. I notice prices have all gone up this month….. at least they have with astroshop, where I’ve been buying.
I bought a Luminos 2.5x Barlow used off another member of my club as I just installed a JMI Crayford 2" focuser on my re-aluminized and refigured to near perfection mirrors on my old C6-N f-5 Newtonian and it is a great Barlow, the best I've ever seen (I'm a rookie so that's not saying much). I'm sorry to hear the 31mm Luminos EPs are not worth their cost. Now I'm wondering about the 2" 19mm or 23mm Luminos EPs, are they mediocre as well? I'm looking for a 20mm to 32mm 2" EP for DSO observing only. I do not do much photography, I have a manual Twilight One AZ mount I bought on sale. My mirror's improvements were on sale too. Most everything I bought have been on sale. For the work I had done on my mirrors I got Takahashi quality for the price of a regular 6" reflector.🤣 Right now the only 2" eyepiece I have since acquiring the 2" focuser is the Luminos Barlow. With a 150mm mirror and a short f5 ratio after the installation of the new focuser it measures at 758mm not 750, but that's the mirror. Also there is a limit to how big I can go or I'll be looking at the walls of my tube, although one guy in my Astro Club said that since my actual tube is 177mm i.d. not 150mm I could go to around 38mm focal length it would only be 19x magnification and it's rated to an 18x minimum. Agena Astro-Products has some 2" @ 32mm to 38mm with 72 degree FOV so I watched this Swan video and decided to go with that. I bought a 33mm Williams Optics Swan though, that gives me 23x. Says it is for f-6 and higher, but I didn't have any issues with it at f-5 at all. I aimed it at C80 or Omega Centauri, the largest known globular cluster in our galaxy. It was magnificent, but here at 32 degrees latitude it will drop below the horizon by the end of July. I love glob clusters and there is always one visible all year. I used the 33mm Swan to look at the Andromeda Galaxy the other early morning in Bortle 4 to 3 depending which direction you pointed with an Optolong broadband filter, it showed some of the radial arms, but not a lot. I was not shocked that my focal length was a little bigger as even before I put the new focuser on it I had to extend the eyepiece way out to focus with the original. So it was engineered to have an extra .312 inch travel on the factory focuser as they were putting extra tolerance into the design. Should have been 50mm or 1.97 to 2.00 even, not 2.312 extension. When I installed the new JMI low profile focuser I moved it and the secondary mirror towards the aperture by removing a 3.2mm spacer and it was near perfect, but my focal length was 8mm off as the focal point was 758, not 750mm. Being an engineer, plus working my way through college in a sheet metal shop makes working on telescopes a bit easier and my mirror's report said 758mm to .000 Knife Edge or vertex radius KE null at 758mm. It is called null if too small to measure, but likely .010 or 0.25mm. My parabolic mirror was near perfect after they refigured it. One of the reasons you should join an astronomy club is that there will most likely be someone there who knows this stuff. I'm near a major University with an astronomy program and have access to some awesome telescopes through my club.
@Mountain Fisher I haven't had the chance to test other Luminos eyepieces other than the 31mm yet, but the 2x Barlow is on my list with items to review in the future. Its good to see however that you enjoy it. I read some positive feedback on it and I believe that it's pretty decent. As for good 2" alternatives with focal lengths between 20mm and 32mm I would recommend looking at the SWAN series from Omegon if available in your region. If not than the Explore Scientific 82° are always worth trying out, even tough they are a bit more expensive. Maybe you could get one on sale 😃 I think that its great that you are able to modify your telescope yourself so extensively to accommodate for new hardware. DIY projects are always fun. I like the idea of modifying a focuser to allow for a wider travel range. Mine is currently capped at 33mm. I'll check if there are ways to extend that a bit. Joining an astronomy club is definitely a good idea. My local club unfortunately stopped any activity during the pandemic. I hope that this is going to change this autumn.
@@BogdanDamian The Luminos 2" Barlow is 2.5x Mr. Damian. I acquired an apo triplet 102mm f7 refractor, Explore Scientific carbon fiber. I just asked for the Astro Tech 102 and my son bought me the ES one instead.😅
Hi Bogdan I am looking for a useful low power eyepiece for my new F/11 Refractor I was looking at the celestron luminos. What would you recommend for my particular Scope as I want to observe other objects besides the moon and planets I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts.
@andykendrick3412 Hi Andy! The 32 or 38mm Swan from Omegon would be my first choice. If you want to spend more, then look at the 82° series from Explore Scientific. I have tested the Celestron Luminos on fast telescopes (f/5) and I didn't like it. It might however perform better on slower telescopes like yours since these are more forgiving on eyepieces.
@@BogdanDamian Fantastic thank you for your help I will consider the luminous. I have just purchased the 6.5 and 12.5mn Morpheus eyepieces for the scope and also 2 17.5mm Morpheus for my 120mm binoculars. So now with the low power options I can close my spending for a while. 😁
Hello bogdan. Can you tell me which eyepiece to see well saturn with my 200 1200 skywatcher. Do you think à 8mm 82' explorer scientifique will be good .to see détails? Thx
@linou1968 Hi! An 8mm eyepiece alone might not be sufficient for observing Saturn. If you have a Barlow, then yes, get the 8mm EP, but this eyepiece alone will produce a magnification of 150x when combined with your telescope. With this magnification Saturn will appear a bit to small for you to see great details. This is why I would rather get a 6mm eyepiece instead. Also keep in mind that for planetary viewing you don't need a very wide AFOV. 60-70° are perfectly enough. I also suggest to simulate different eyepieces with this FOV calculator before you buy anything: astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ It will give you a good idea of what to expect and you can base you purchase decision on this as well.
I can see Saturn's rings separated from the planet at 20X. The Cassini Division from about 100X but less is possible, your local atmosphere can interfere with fine details. Shading on the planet is possible at less magnification. Saturn looks small at all magnifications, my APM100 7mm and 5mm used in different scopes give me between 150X to 200X, depending on the atmosphere, i can sometimes see a little extra shading but most of the time, they just look similar. Lets not forget Saturn's moons as tiny dots and while i enjoy looking at Saturn, the planet is a bit bland but yet so amazing. What i would say however, i own the full set of Celestron X-Cel LX, generic set of plossls, SvBony 7021mm and SvBony 8-3mm zooms and ill say this, planets look bigger in narrow field of view eyepieces, this is an illusion that others have noted but interesting, however, while a narrow field of view eyepieces are nice, the widest eyepiece you can afford would be better as you can use it on larger targets reducing the amount of eyepieces you need. This is why i bought the APM 100 XWA, seeing the whole moon, not just part of it at 200X in my Sky-Watcher Explorer 200p is amazing. Larger field view, less eyepieces you need to buy.
I own all of the APM100 XWA eyepieces, all are fantastic in my telescopes from F5 to F11.1. They are superior and much cheaper than the ES100 eyepieces. You cant go wrong with them, as long as you enjoy such a wide field of view.
@Artyom Beilis Hi, unfortunately I haven't had the chance to test the Svbony yet, but I'm putting this eyepiece on the list of things to review it the future. I'll try to get my hands on one and make a comparison between it and the SWAN.
I just read the omegon page, and can assure you it is not as well corrected as they said, because they later let the cat out of the bag. "Slightly better edge corrected than williams swan, and better light transmission than meaze QX" well my 15mm superview had better transmission than my 15mm meade qx. These are 5 element modern widefields, nothing else. A slight improvement over the WO swan, is not a well corrected eyepiece for.fast scopes. If your field lens is not a very concave one like your 24 pan, i assure you a coma corrector will not make it sharp to the edge.
Human eye can deal with cca. 68 deg FOV at a time. Compared to the SWAN32, That 12 deg plus alone, doesn't worth the extra (3x) cost and the extra (3x) weight of the Luminos IMHO. And you get worse optical performance, at least at f/4,9. Maybe it can be worth to give a second run for the Celestron, but with a slow MC or SC tube. However, budget eyepieces usually perform surprisingly well with slow telescopes so why one pay that 400 Euros, when even a 40-50 Euros ep does the job properly.
They did not intend it for SCTS nor design it. The previous line with the exact same look, the axiom.LX, was made by JOC and was exactly the same optics as the meade 5k UWA and explore scientific 82deg. After at least a decade on the market, meade and celestron were cut off from selling JOC made eyepieces, and ES went exclusive and doubled the price of some and increased the price of others. So meade.went to one company that offered a limited line of 5.5, 8.8.and 20mm.UWA (I forgot if they had any more.focal.lengths, but i.bought one of the 5.5s and it was like type6 nagler good. Celestron went with another oem to recreate the entire line of axiom LX,.with all the same.focal.lengths, and apparently this company could not quite pull it off, but it was close enough for.government work with yes, a large SCT using customer base. If you want a good big 82deg , get one of the 28mm 82deg william optics UWAN type, offered by many, meade PWA being one of them around $300..other brands have had lower prices. The meade has its own futuristic look, the uwan and orion megaview had that classic WO look, with flat top like.their XWA. Astrotech had one with a normal.eye cup.and others exist as well. It performs pretty much like.a.nagler
Hi bogdan just wondered what your opinion is on budget zoom eyepieces like celestron or svbony?I think svbony 7-21mm is around 50 pounds and celestron equivalent is around 60-70 pounds!
@Stephen-gp8yi Hi Stephen! There are good budget zoom eyepieces out there like the SV171 and the SV135 both from Svbony. I haven't tested the one from Celestron yet so i can't comment on it's performance. But keep in mind that there are going to be some trade-offs when compared to higher tier options. I have a video on the SV171 if you want to find out more: studio.th-cam.com/users/videoFpGYMhcKfnU/edit
I dont know for sure having not seen tbe exact eyepiece, but i am pretty sure the Omegon swan is the same as the orion Q70, and many others selling the same designs under different brands. There is no way it has sharp stars to the edge at f5, and there is a ton of astigmatism at the edge at f5 and a coma.corrector will NOT fix that. Nobody sells a $140 2" 32mm 70deg eyepiece that is well corrected for fast scopes. It may not have rectilinear distortion at the edge, but that is inconsequential for astronomy, as both naglers and panoptics allow.this distortion in order to have pinpoint stars to the edge. You cant tell.me.that the swan doesn't have considerable amounts of non sharp stars in the outer 30% of the field. I am sure you are chalking it up to coma, but the astigmatism in the eye piece is far worse. When Al nagler inveneted the paracorr, and saw how much astigmatism was left in his widefield eyepieces, he designed the panoptic to correct the astigmatism. You would see the same with the swan if you got a coma corrector. The reason the luminos sucks so bad, is it is a copy of.a.copy. not very well.executed. the axiom LX was the JOC82 optic which was an attempt at the 31 nagler that fell short a tad, and the luminos is another manufacturers attempt to make their own version for celestron that didnt go as well as its predecessor. If you want a good performer for a good price, get one of the 28mm 82deg that is based on the original william optics uwan. Meade sells it now as the PWA, and i think even APM sells one . Many brands offer this optic, and it blows the 30mm es82 out of the water. The second best one is the 24mm es82, but to pay a reasonable price you need to hunt down a used meade 24mm UWA or celestron 23mm axiom LX,. Or some of the older non waterproof versions of the ES.
I have the Luminos 31mm and although the viewing experience has been good, I have increasingly relegated it to the dark region of my optics case due to the extra weight. With a DSLR, 2' prism diag, dew shield/heaters and a finderscope on board, I dont favor taxing the drive motors with that large 'soup can' if I dont need to. I am now strongly considering the 32mm SWAN as an alternative. Thanks for the well-ballanced, fair review. Your channel is fast becoming one of my favorite sources for unbiased reviews!
I have 3 luminos eyepieces I use with my 925 edgehd...which has a slower f10 (without my reducer I only use for astrophotography) .. the main issue I see people having is you need a big scope and a solid mount.... its big and heavy.
But I love them.
I think these eyepieces may have been made with sct in mind. Be a bit heavy for a dob.... but great with an sct, especially my edgehd, fov to me looks great.... I have a feeling the luminos was made with the edgehd sct scopes in mind.
and Adjustable eye relief is fantastic.
Thank you so much for reviewing and comparing these two. I now have the Omegon SWAN and a Focal Reducer/Corrector for my SCT. BTW, as I didn't pay sufficient attention (totally on me) I now also have a 2-inch diagonal. Please continue the stellar work.
As a dob user the weight difference would be an instant dealbreaker for me. At 3x the weight of the SWAN the Luminos will almost certainly require counterweights, which in turn detracts from the simple 'grab n' go' joy of a small-to-medium sized dob!
A very good and fair review Bogdan. I picked up the 31mm Luminos EP second hand recently. I tried it the other day on my Evostar80, I found all the complaints you have with it. My mount is a manual tracker and i found as soon as the object drifted out of center of FOV all the problems surfaced. I also found i have to turn my head a lot more to get my eye in the sweet spot. I have yet to try it in my CPC1100 as i have not yet got a 2" diagonal for it yet.
@William Blakers Thanks for your feedback. I'm curious as well to see if the Luminos works better in telescopes with longer focal lengths like your CPC1100. Hopefully it does. Clear skies!
I think they were made with edgehd sct in mind
This is such an informative channel, new subsciber! Recently I've been doing more and more visual astronomy after I did astrophotography for 3,5 years straight. I sold my visual dobs to pay for the expenses, but I've bought a 90mm Mak to do some lunar, solar and planetary viewing. Planning to buy a bigger scope (8/9.25"SCT to put on my HEQ5 Pro) next year. I bought a 7-21mm zoom eyepiece from Orion, a 10mm Ortho from Baader and a 13mm Hyperion from Baader. I do have experience with the Baader Classic Ortho's from before, they are fantastic and should at least be able to rival your 9mm Delite on planets in your Mak too. The on-axis performance (contrast, sharpness) in a good Ortho is almost unmatched, and they are pretty cheap as well. They only lack a little bit in eye relief and AFOV, but it's not too bad. Highly recommended!
@Jens Lankamp Thank you for subscribing and for your feedback. I haven't had the chance to test one of Baader's classic Orthos until now. I have heard good things about them though. I'll have to give them a try sometime. Clear skies!
I have the Apertura (just like the SWAN) and consider it one of my best quality eye pieces. I dont have the budget for the Luminos or TeleVue eye pieces!
I’m really enjoying your videos. I find them very informative. Keep them coming!
An excellent review very balanced and it go's to show u don't need to spend big to get a good view of the night sky, i don't have either as I'm a baader guy just got the 12.5mm (excellent) however Im allways instead in the mid range as I believe that is where the best value is, not quite as good as the top class, tele vue maybe,🤷♂️ but close is good enough and if ur spending top money u wanna get the best u can👍
Thank you for sharing your experiences & knowledge.
Concerning edge of field brighting, at 6:32 it looks like it is forming a light donut in the center as well.
@Iornaz1975 That is more due to the phone camera. In reality the center donut wasn't as noticeable. The outer ring was, however, much more noticeable with the naked eye.
The luminos is well under $300 in the USA. But the luminous has known issues.
The older axiom LX that looked the same, is much better so buying used is the way to go.
They were made by JOC, and were the same eyepieces optically.as the meade series5000 UWA, and ES82.
The 7mm and 6.7 were the same, the 8.8 and the 10 were the same. The 14 and 15 were the same, the 18 and 19 were the same, the 23 and 24 was the same, and the 30 and 31 were the same.
Telescope companies tend to use numbers slightly different than the actual focal length to keep them in line with their previous lines, like the 8.8, 6.7 and 14mm meade series 4000, and 15, 19 and 23mm axiom.
A 12 inch F5 is probably not the best option to review the Luminos, its better suited to F10 scopes.
@ColdWarWarriors Interesting point! I'll have to test it with an SCT/Mak the next time I get the chance and see how much of a difference the f ratio makes.
All eyepieces work at F10, there are cheap 30mm 80 degree eyepieces that are clones of the old Widescan eyepiece that have had many names that work at f8 and above and cost less than the SvBony 34mm 70 degree eyepiece. When an eyepiece costs almost the same as Explore Scientific 30mm 82 degree eyepiece, it is right to test them on fast focal ratio telescopes when they come with a premium price tag. Celestron are ripping off people of their hard earned cash with these. Had they been half the price of ES82 30 eyepiece, these eyepieces wouldn't have such a bad reputation.
@@BogdanDamianPlease review on slower telescope to be a fair and just review. I enjoy my Luminos eyepieces 7, 10 and 31 mm😊
Please try the Luminos 31 on a refractor telescope. I have the Esprit 120 ED APO Sky-Watcher focal length 840 mm.
Luminos eyepiece is only good for f6 and higher. Ring of fire is not as bad as people say but it is there
Agree! Should be used with slower telescopes 🎉🎉
Celestron stc hd range are slow and have field flatteners built into them. Perhaps the short comings of the Lum won't be an issue with them. its a lot of money to find out.
Does anyone know where to find the Omegon/Apertura eyepieces in Canada? Or is there anything else comparable in both quality and price? I have the 15mm Luminos with an f5 dob, and it's fantastic, but it seems like I should steer clear of the 31mm offering.
I always enjoy your informative reviews 👍
I have an Omegon SWAN 38mm and Omegon Panorama 21mm and they seem quite good, but when viewing during the day they exhibit a brownish ring around the edge. I’m told this is normal. I’ve also ordered a 27mm Televue Panoptic, but the expected delivery of 2 weeks has changed to 3 months after placing the order, so yet to make a comparison. Then again, whilst this region usually has clear skies, it has been far too hazy recently for good viewing, so not missed much.
I guess though that the point I’m getting to, is that whilst your testing of the celestron helps us viewers to make good choices, Im surprised for such a high cost that you didn’t just go for a televue?
@Alan price Thanks! Interesting, haven't tested the SWAN during the day yet. I'll have to do that.
Hopefully there won't be any other delays to the Panoptic's delivery.
As for an alternative from Tele Vue to the Luminos, they are pretty pricey here in Germany. The 31mm Nagler T5 costs 960 Euros. Maybe the 30mm 82° from explore scientific could be a good mid-range option and a significant step up from the SWAN. I'll have to test that in the future. Until then I'll just enjoy the SWAN.
@@BogdanDamian ah, yes…. I hadn’t realised the televue was so expensive, as the TV eye pieces I’ve been buying have tended to be in the €450 price bracket. I notice prices have all gone up this month….. at least they have with astroshop, where I’ve been buying.
I bought a Luminos 2.5x Barlow used off another member of my club as I just installed a JMI Crayford 2" focuser on my re-aluminized and refigured to near perfection mirrors on my old C6-N f-5 Newtonian and it is a great Barlow, the best I've ever seen (I'm a rookie so that's not saying much).
I'm sorry to hear the 31mm Luminos EPs are not worth their cost. Now I'm wondering about the 2" 19mm or 23mm Luminos EPs, are they mediocre as well? I'm looking for a 20mm to 32mm 2" EP for DSO observing only. I do not do much photography, I have a manual Twilight One AZ mount I bought on sale. My mirror's improvements were on sale too. Most everything I bought have been on sale. For the work I had done on my mirrors I got Takahashi quality for the price of a regular 6" reflector.🤣
Right now the only 2" eyepiece I have since acquiring the 2" focuser is the Luminos Barlow. With a 150mm mirror and a short f5 ratio after the installation of the new focuser it measures at 758mm not 750, but that's the mirror. Also there is a limit to how big I can go or I'll be looking at the walls of my tube, although one guy in my Astro Club said that since my actual tube is 177mm i.d. not 150mm I could go to around 38mm focal length it would only be 19x magnification and it's rated to an 18x minimum. Agena Astro-Products has some 2" @ 32mm to 38mm with 72 degree FOV so I watched this Swan video and decided to go with that. I bought a 33mm Williams Optics Swan though, that gives me 23x. Says it is for f-6 and higher, but I didn't have any issues with it at f-5 at all. I aimed it at C80 or Omega Centauri, the largest known globular cluster in our galaxy. It was magnificent, but here at 32 degrees latitude it will drop below the horizon by the end of July. I love glob clusters and there is always one visible all year. I used the 33mm Swan to look at the Andromeda Galaxy the other early morning in Bortle 4 to 3 depending which direction you pointed with an Optolong broadband filter, it showed some of the radial arms, but not a lot.
I was not shocked that my focal length was a little bigger as even before I put the new focuser on it I had to extend the eyepiece way out to focus with the original. So it was engineered to have an extra .312 inch travel on the factory focuser as they were putting extra tolerance into the design. Should have been 50mm or 1.97 to 2.00 even, not 2.312 extension.
When I installed the new JMI low profile focuser I moved it and the secondary mirror towards the aperture by removing a 3.2mm spacer and it was near perfect, but my focal length was 8mm off as the focal point was 758, not 750mm. Being an engineer, plus working my way through college in a sheet metal shop makes working on telescopes a bit easier and my mirror's report said 758mm to .000 Knife Edge or vertex radius KE null at 758mm. It is called null if too small to measure, but likely .010 or 0.25mm. My parabolic mirror was near perfect after they refigured it.
One of the reasons you should join an astronomy club is that there will most likely be someone there who knows this stuff. I'm near a major University with an astronomy program and have access to some awesome telescopes through my club.
@Mountain Fisher I haven't had the chance to test other Luminos eyepieces other than the 31mm yet, but the 2x Barlow is on my list with items to review in the future. Its good to see however that you enjoy it. I read some positive feedback on it and I believe that it's pretty decent.
As for good 2" alternatives with focal lengths between 20mm and 32mm I would recommend looking at the SWAN series from Omegon if available in your region. If not than the Explore Scientific 82° are always worth trying out, even tough they are a bit more expensive. Maybe you could get one on sale 😃
I think that its great that you are able to modify your telescope yourself so extensively to accommodate for new hardware. DIY projects are always fun. I like the idea of modifying a focuser to allow for a wider travel range. Mine is currently capped at 33mm. I'll check if there are ways to extend that a bit.
Joining an astronomy club is definitely a good idea. My local club unfortunately stopped any activity during the pandemic. I hope that this is going to change this autumn.
@@BogdanDamian The Luminos 2" Barlow is 2.5x Mr. Damian. I acquired an apo triplet 102mm f7 refractor, Explore Scientific carbon fiber. I just asked for the Astro Tech 102 and my son bought me the ES one instead.😅
@MountainFisher Now that's an upgrade 😅
Hi Bogdan I am looking for a useful low power eyepiece for my new F/11 Refractor I was looking at the celestron luminos. What would you recommend for my particular Scope as I want to observe other objects besides the moon and planets I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts.
@andykendrick3412 Hi Andy! The 32 or 38mm Swan from Omegon would be my first choice. If you want to spend more, then look at the 82° series from Explore Scientific. I have tested the Celestron Luminos on fast telescopes (f/5) and I didn't like it. It might however perform better on slower telescopes like yours since these are more forgiving on eyepieces.
@@BogdanDamian Fantastic thank you for your help I will consider the luminous. I have just purchased the 6.5 and 12.5mn Morpheus eyepieces for the scope and also 2 17.5mm Morpheus for my 120mm binoculars. So now with the low power options I can close my spending for a while. 😁
@andykendrick3412 Sounds good! That's a nice setup you put together there 🙂 Clear skies!
Hello bogdan. Can you tell me which eyepiece to see well saturn with my 200 1200 skywatcher. Do you think à 8mm 82' explorer scientifique will be good .to see détails? Thx
@linou1968 Hi! An 8mm eyepiece alone might not be sufficient for observing Saturn. If you have a Barlow, then yes, get the 8mm EP, but this eyepiece alone will produce a magnification of 150x when combined with your telescope. With this magnification Saturn will appear a bit to small for you to see great details. This is why I would rather get a 6mm eyepiece instead. Also keep in mind that for planetary viewing you don't need a very wide AFOV. 60-70° are perfectly enough. I also suggest to simulate different eyepieces with this FOV calculator before you buy anything: astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/
It will give you a good idea of what to expect and you can base you purchase decision on this as well.
I can see Saturn's rings separated from the planet at 20X. The Cassini Division from about 100X but less is possible, your local atmosphere can interfere with fine details. Shading on the planet is possible at less magnification. Saturn looks small at all magnifications, my APM100 7mm and 5mm used in different scopes give me between 150X to 200X, depending on the atmosphere, i can sometimes see a little extra shading but most of the time, they just look similar. Lets not forget Saturn's moons as tiny dots and while i enjoy looking at Saturn, the planet is a bit bland but yet so amazing.
What i would say however, i own the full set of Celestron X-Cel LX, generic set of plossls, SvBony 7021mm and SvBony 8-3mm zooms and ill say this, planets look bigger in narrow field of view eyepieces, this is an illusion that others have noted but interesting, however, while a narrow field of view eyepieces are nice, the widest eyepiece you can afford would be better as you can use it on larger targets reducing the amount of eyepieces you need. This is why i bought the APM 100 XWA, seeing the whole moon, not just part of it at 200X in my Sky-Watcher Explorer 200p is amazing. Larger field view, less eyepieces you need to buy.
Do a test on the 13mm 100° EP from APM!
@Robin P I just added the EP to the list of items to review.
@@BogdanDamian Thanks! It's something I'm looking to buy myself, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. :)
I own all of the APM100 XWA eyepieces, all are fantastic in my telescopes from F5 to F11.1. They are superior and much cheaper than the ES100 eyepieces. You cant go wrong with them, as long as you enjoy such a wide field of view.
How SWAn is compared to SVBony's 34mm/72deg?
@Artyom Beilis Hi, unfortunately I haven't had the chance to test the Svbony yet, but I'm putting this eyepiece on the list of things to review it the future. I'll try to get my hands on one and make a comparison between it and the SWAN.
I just read the omegon page, and can assure you it is not as well corrected as they said, because they later let the cat out of the bag. "Slightly better edge corrected than williams swan, and better light transmission than meaze QX" well my 15mm superview had better transmission than my 15mm meade qx.
These are 5 element modern widefields, nothing else. A slight improvement over the WO swan, is not a well corrected eyepiece for.fast scopes. If your field lens is not a very concave one like your 24 pan, i assure you a coma corrector will not make it sharp to the edge.
Human eye can deal with cca. 68 deg FOV at a time. Compared to the SWAN32, That 12 deg plus alone, doesn't worth the extra (3x) cost and the extra (3x) weight of the Luminos IMHO. And you get worse optical performance, at least at f/4,9. Maybe it can be worth to give a second run for the Celestron, but with a slow MC or SC tube. However, budget eyepieces usually perform surprisingly well with slow telescopes so why one pay that 400 Euros, when even a 40-50 Euros ep does the job properly.
you know that means you can move the eye more freely right? bruh
I buy the idea that Celestron expects you to use the Luminos with their SCTs and not with a fast dob.
@Daniel John Kirby Yes, I would say that this is very plausible now after testing the eypeiece.
They did not intend it for SCTS nor design it. The previous line with the exact same look, the axiom.LX, was made by JOC and was exactly the same optics as the meade 5k UWA and explore scientific 82deg. After at least a decade on the market, meade and celestron were cut off from selling JOC made eyepieces, and ES went exclusive and doubled the price of some and increased the price of others.
So meade.went to one company that offered a limited line of 5.5, 8.8.and 20mm.UWA (I forgot if they had any more.focal.lengths, but i.bought one of the 5.5s and it was like type6 nagler good.
Celestron went with another oem to recreate the entire line of axiom LX,.with all the same.focal.lengths, and apparently this company could not quite pull it off, but it was close enough for.government work with yes, a large SCT using customer base.
If you want a good big 82deg , get one of the 28mm 82deg william optics UWAN type, offered by many, meade PWA being one of them around $300..other brands have had lower prices. The meade has its own futuristic look, the uwan and orion megaview had that classic WO look, with flat top like.their XWA. Astrotech had one with a normal.eye cup.and others exist as well. It performs pretty much like.a.nagler
Hi bogdan just wondered what your opinion is on budget zoom eyepieces like celestron or svbony?I think svbony 7-21mm is around 50 pounds and celestron equivalent is around 60-70 pounds!
@Stephen-gp8yi Hi Stephen! There are good budget zoom eyepieces out there like the SV171 and the SV135 both from Svbony. I haven't tested the one from Celestron yet so i can't comment on it's performance. But keep in mind that there are going to be some trade-offs when compared to higher tier options. I have a video on the SV171 if you want to find out more: studio.th-cam.com/users/videoFpGYMhcKfnU/edit
@@BogdanDamian thanks✌️
I dont know for sure having not seen tbe exact eyepiece, but i am pretty sure the Omegon swan is the same as the orion Q70, and many others selling the same designs under different brands.
There is no way it has sharp stars to the edge at f5, and there is a ton of astigmatism at the edge at f5 and a coma.corrector will NOT fix that.
Nobody sells a $140 2" 32mm 70deg eyepiece that is well corrected for fast scopes. It may not have rectilinear distortion at the edge, but that is inconsequential for astronomy, as both naglers and panoptics allow.this distortion in order to have pinpoint stars to the edge.
You cant tell.me.that the swan doesn't have considerable amounts of non sharp stars in the outer 30% of the field. I am sure you are chalking it up to coma, but the astigmatism in the eye piece is far worse. When Al nagler inveneted the paracorr, and saw how much astigmatism was left in his widefield eyepieces, he designed the panoptic to correct the astigmatism. You would see the same with the swan if you got a coma corrector.
The reason the luminos sucks so bad, is it is a copy of.a.copy. not very well.executed. the axiom LX was the JOC82 optic which was an attempt at the 31 nagler that fell short a tad, and the luminos is another manufacturers attempt to make their own version for celestron that didnt go as well as its predecessor.
If you want a good performer for a good price, get one of the 28mm 82deg that is based on the original william optics uwan. Meade sells it now as the PWA, and i think even APM sells one . Many brands offer this optic, and it blows the 30mm es82 out of the water.
The second best one is the 24mm es82, but to pay a reasonable price you need to hunt down a used meade 24mm UWA or celestron 23mm axiom LX,. Or some of the older non waterproof versions of the ES.
Celestron is much better IMHO
That Luminos eyepiece is pretty ugly.