ES eyepiece price!

[tuckstar]

Just been pricing up my next prospective purchases.

Stunned that the es 20mm 100° has gone up £180 in twelve months and the 14mm has gone up by £100 in 6 months. Shocking even with brexit that's a huge amount. Glad I got mine when I did. Of course the 9 mm and 5.5 mm have also gone up by £100 ?

[Tweedledee]

Crikey, glad I got mine in the cheap old days! I'm now thinking mine were a bit of an investment.

[Doc]

Televue has gone up a lot as well. The Delos range are now £330 each that's a hike of £90. The 31mm Nagler is around £650 new now that's a hike of £175.

 

 

[Tweedledee]

In about 2000 I bought a 31mm Nagler when they first came out, and paid £650. At the time they were S&T's Hot Product of the year.

[Daz Type-R]

That's bonkers,wonder what the justification is for a hike of that magnitude?

 

Glad I've got all the ep's I need.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Daz Type-R

[Perkil8r]

the issue is that the pound is doing really badly so there's one part. If the manufacturer has increased the price a bit too then that accounts for a fair bit when added to a poor exchange rate. Add to that import duty will have increased as a result as that is worked out when it lands. Shipping will also suffer with the exchange rate. Then there's the pesky vat worked out on all of the above. It doesn't take much of a manufacturer increase to make a big difference. I used to import goods from usa and china for resale and saw this a lot between 2008 & 2009 when the big drop in exchange rate happened. My costs almost doubled overnight making it unrealistic to continue so I had to drop those lines sadly.

[+Ibbo]

Also we have been through a relatively "cheap" period of astro kit.

[+Bino-viewer]

At the IAS last year i got the distinct impression talking to a German vendor,

that most other European vendors were pretty p***ed off that UK prices were quite a bit cheaper than in €uroland. 

 

At Astrofest last week i noticed the 21 Ethos was something like £775  And that was a trade discount price. Crazy. I don't think they sold many.

I purchased one in 2014 (IAS) for £570 but regretfully sold it. 

 

Even in the US they are listed at $829. It pays to shop around and watch the currency fluctuations.

 

But from an economical point of view the £ had been overly strong before the EU referendum. I guess the honeymoon is now over.

 

[+Bino-viewer]

14 hours ago, Tweedledee said:

In about 2000 I bought a 31mm Nagler when they first came out, and paid £650. At the time they were S&T's Hot Product of the year.

 

I paid £380 for my N31 in 2008 ? 2009?  That was a big buy for me back then. But its my oldest eyepiece, and a life keeper hopefully.

It was listed at £450-£479 if i remember, and was reduced that year when Tele-vue had a 20% off offer on.

[Perkil8r]

In early 2008ish it was pretty much $2 - £1 which fell like a stone to $1.50, that made a huge difference at the time. We've never really recovered from that although around 2011 when we went over to the States it had crept up a little to around $1.68 IIRC, just lately though, and as you say, the pound has crashed since the EU Referendum. The dollar is taking a beating lately too thanks to the new president. That has most likely affected the buy in price to USA from China which will be where a lot of it comes from no doubt.

[tuckstar]

The cheapest I could find was from teleskop services in Germany, which is £50 cheaper than anywhere over here including postage.

[+Bino-viewer]

I see Petes eyepiece (ES 30 / 100)  is now a eye watering €1199 and ITS ON OFFER ! 

Bizarrely the ES 9 / 120 is €100 more expensive at €1299 , but i think he has one already ?

 

This is getting ridiculous isn't it ? 

It makes my N31 those few years ago seem quite a sensible buy........

 

 

[Tweedledee]

1 hour ago, Bino-viewer said:

I see Petes eyepiece (ES 30 / 100)  is now a eye watering €1199 and ITS ON OFFER ! 

Bizarrely the ES 9 / 120 is €100 more expensive at €1299 , but i think he has one already ?

 

This is getting ridiculous isn't it ? 

It makes my N31 those few years ago seem quite a sensible buy........

 

 

I have both the ES 9/120 and the 25/100, imported from the USA in 2014. I got a superb deal back then when they were being heavily discounted for a short period, though it was still an absolutely ridiculous purchase price compared with average eyepieces. I could make a good profit on what I paid, selling them secondhand now, assuming someone was in the market for such eyepieces.

 

Using these eyepieces on a superb night, does give such a lot of pleasure though, and they put such a massive grin on my face, reminding me that they were totally worth it.

 

I remember the same pleasure that the Nagler 31 gave me a few years before, though the superb N31 is definitely made redundant by the ES 25/100.

 

When I have the 20" dob finished with the 3" focuser, I know I won't be able to resist getting the ES 3" 30/100 to push the limits and obtain the maximum true FOV. I will look for one secondhand though, and actually resisted buying one recently for £700. That took some wrestling with my wallet and sense of proportion, but I eventually reasoned that I wouldn't be able to use it for along while and it would spend too much time being an expensive ornament. 

[tuckstar]

Because your worth it!!

[Tweedledee]

3 hours ago, tuckstar said:

Because your worth it!!

Swmbo would have some very good counter arguments to that statement. 

[newtyng5]

Wow they do cost a lot!

Interesting topic as I am currently buying my own eyepieces (rather than use tony's, as I found when we was observing he was constantly saying 'where's that gone'  )

I have read loads on the subject recently and it occurs to me, unless you have money to burn, its pointless getting naglers or the new ES 120degree that costs almost a grand, or indeed anything like that.

(Not tried any of these yet) I forked out 45quid on a meade 4000 40mil SP ,  and got a celestron luminos 15mil 82degree for 110 quid (new). Interested to compare with others when we up observing again. Was gonna get a speers waler 9.5 next (all 1.25). But wondering whether I should go 2inch.

The meade 5000 hd series look good.

To me, theres always gonna be tradeoff between price and performance. But not like 300% (price v performance). Esp in an F10.

 

Still looking for a high power eyepiece (between 7-11). Speers waler was my intended target but seems its so long it has focusing issues (probably in faster ratios, but cannot seem to find info if its good and focusable in sct's f10). So was tempted with a pentax XF 1.25m 8,5F (£114).

 

I did read that having changed the VB to 2inch , every 2inch eyepiece should deliver 70% extra FOV . While the calculations of that seem sound, I am not quite sure.

 

Anyway clear skies for all.

[newtyng5]

or this Vixen LVW Eyepiece 8mm (£169, always been a vixen fan, dunno why) that's the most I will spend (I know generally EP's hold value and can be an investment but....) Myriad of options really

Edited April 7, 2017 by newtyng5

[Tweedledee]

 

As you have already said, you have a big advantage with a long focal length F10 scope, meaning you will get excellent views through cheaper or lesser quality eyepieces. The slight disadvantage is that your maximum FOV is going to be quite small at F10 but can be widened, power for power, using wide angle eyepieces. This is no problem if you are looking at planets and double stars etc.

 

To explore low power wide angle views 2" eyepieces are the way to go, but even with a 2" visual back, your scope might still vignette some bigger 2" eyepieces due to the size of the internal baffle tube opening. This might mean that the outer edge of the FOV might be dimmer than the middle. In practice this will hardly be noticeable, though some faint fuzzies may disappear as you move them to the edge of the field. Changing the VB will not give you a larger field, it will just allow you the capability to use 2" eyepieces that are capable of giving you a wider field, which you will find is an advantage. Your 1.25" eyepiece views will look the same with the 2" VB.

The Speers Waler's are good quality and unusual wide angle eyepieces though quite expensive. I have their wide angle high power zoom which is lovely to use and gives well over an 80 degree FOV throughout the zoom range. Your SCT will have no focusing issues at all with any eyepiece.

 

Those Luminos 82 degree eyepieces are great value for money. I used to have a 23mm 82 degree Axiom LX which was the forerunner and virtually identical to the luminos. It was superb to use.

 

There are some low power widefield 2" eyepieces that are relatively cheap and would perform well at F10. The 30mm 80 degree Moonfish and its clones are great at F10 for your widest fields and costs vary from about £80 new to £40 used.

 

I think you should get to a meet and try other people's eyepieces, and you'll soon get a good idea of what you like for your scope. Another way is that you can get some great secondhand bargains on ebay and abs. If you find you don't get on with them, you will probably sell them again for what you paid. Have fun. 

[Doc]

For F10 I would go Baader Hyperions every time. I had the whole set many years ago and used them in my TAL100r which was F10, cannot fault them in a slow scope.

 

No good at all in a fast scope, then save your pennies and invest in quality eyepieces made for fast scopes.

[newtyng5]

Cheers for the info Mick and Pete. Plenty of food for thought.

 

[newtyng5]

Update: decided to go for a 21 mm baader hyperion, and (after hrs of research) a 9mm SW myriad 100°. Also Tony gave my his SW 38mm panaview as it really wasn't any good in his dob, but is actually not too bad in my slowy scope. Just hoping to get observing again, as the moon and working nights has not given me an opportunity. Pinning my hopes up for Sunday, but does not look good (eyepieces will not arrive till next week anyway -now).

Cheers for the advice.

 

[Tweedledee]

They should all work nicely in your SCT. The 9mm giving 260x might be pushing it a bit on the poorer nights, but at least it will give the widest field your going to get at that power - about 0.4 degrees.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Tweedledee

[newtyng5]

Tony suggested I post this. Eyepiece case complete (for now). I used to have a 10" beacon hill dob years ago, and I am sure I had televue eyepieces with it, as they was in a case (3 eyepieces) and cost 600quid back then (1991-3) , was an amazing dob. But they could not have been naglers, prolly early plossl's ? On another note that 9mm 100° is bigger than I expected

Edited April 23, 2017 by newtyng5

[Doc]

Nice set up Rob, they look very cosy in that case 

[Tweedledee]

You have a nice, varied collection now.