Celestron 93230 1.25 inch / 8-24mm Zoom Eyepiece
Celestron 93230 1.25 inch / 8-24mm Zoom Eyepiece, Black/Silve
Premium Optics
The Celestron 8-24 mm Zoom Eyepiece uses premium optics that are fully multi-coated for crisp, clear images. The folding eyecup lets you view with or without glasses, and the field of view (40 – 60 degrees) works well for terrestrial observations as well as for views of the Moon, planets, and deep-sky objects.
| Weight: | 0.13 Kilograms |
| Dimensions: | 10.2 x 2.5 x 2.5 centimetres |
| Brand: | Celestron |
| Model: | 93230 |
| Part: | 93230 |
| Dimensions: | 10.2 x 2.5 x 2.5 centimetres |
yeah, i bought the wrong bore size, so i couldn’t really use it. had to send back. seemed cool tho.
Focus might be a little soft compared to a fixed lense, but not horrible. Bigger and heavier than I was expecting and barrel ring moves smoothly to change power.
It does a great job of effectively replacing all the individual lenses in the 8-24mm range we have. My son and I use it in a smaller Zhumell 100mm dobsobian, and the lens is heavy enough to put a noticeable tilt on the lens holder; not sure if I’d trust combining it with a Barlow of any substantial length. The adjustment ring is also a little stiff (probably a good thing, to prevent over adjustment), but does make finer focusing a little difficult.
Overall great, though.
I’m a novice and this is a great optic for a medium strength telescope. I have a Celestron StarSense Explorer DX and this optic is great for those who are looking for a god quality eyepiece with flexibility. At higher powers you loose some qualify due the additional glass being present in the eyepiece but for those of us who are just starting out and want to easily find, focus and observe stellar objects this is a great choice. It also offers a large eye relief (hole you look through)which is great for anyone who wears glasses or if you have small children. My problem with some of the budget optics I’ve found is that at higher powers the eye relief (hole you look through) is very small and impossible to use for kids and those with glasses. This makes it really easy for my small children to observe objects, even with the clarity reduction at higher powers. It also helps not needed to mess around in the dark changing eye pieces and messing with Barlow lenses and all that jazz. I highly recommend this for anyone who is looking for something to start them off on their viewing journey or for anyone who wants a space saver when taking a trip.
Ayuda mucho a ubicar objetivo y luego con zoom observarlo
First item added to my new 130 EQ MD telescope. Much better quality than included lenses, and covers greater range. Along with Barlow lens, allowed me to get clear view of green comet.
I bought this eye piece for my wife and her 10″ reflector. She has injuries to her hands and wrists from a road traffic accident with her hands pinned in the vertical position. She always has had bother changing eye pieces when out observing, so this has been a god send for her. She enjoys astronomy so much more now. As for the quality? It’s very good and well built. A vast improvement over the eye pieces you get as standard with a new scope and more versatile. If you are new to astronomy and want an all in one until you decide that this hobby is for you, before you start spending hundreds of pounds on more professional eye pieces, I would highly recommend this eye piece.
A run of the mill adjustable eyepeice, build quality is ok, but like all celestron stuff, it has a flaw, which is the lens inside, its poor quality and despite the description, its not Spectra Coated, its a standard lens so you get a lot of flare when viewing objects.
un bell’oculare, robusto e con una bella immagine molto luminosa. Il campo apparente adeguato alla fascia di prezzo
Producto de excelente calidad, indicado para principiantes y tambin para los que ya no lo son, versatil y prctico, mejora enormemente la experiencia con el Telescopio, robusto de manejo suave y preciso, estupenda compra, envo realizado con Amazon, rpido y eficaz.
I had a second hand scope that only came with one eyepiece, gave this a try as it seemed a good option for the price, I’m really happy with it for what I want, easy to use, and being able to zoom in with minimal effort is grea
The Celestron Zoom eyepiece is my main eyepiece for it’s flexibility. I use it on a 12inch Reflector that really pushes this EP’s limit but it allows fast adjustments and less fumbling. Who wants to drop eyepieces when switching? For beginners, it replaces 3-5 eyepieces and allows one to really find the proper mag. The outer 10% is soft in focus but this is likely due to coma on the reflector and on a refractor I expect sharper views. I see very little chromatic aberration. I can also say the barrel turns easily even to temps around 15F. It also has threads that can be used with a T-ring adapter—easily attached to my Nikon D7000 for some basic astrophotography. Overall, this zoom eyepiece is a great value and highly recommended.
Useful eyepiece for your telescope. The zoom mechanism is a little difficult to rotate -otherwise worth every penny.
Perfect lens for beginners. Perfect quality definitely worth the money
Not cheap but very pleased with the quality and image
Very good multipurpose tool – must have for observation AND astrophotography. Will same me a lot of additional equipment while I am still learning!
I know enough about telescopes to set mine up without causing injury to myself or others. I purchased a modest telescope a few years back and enjoy taking it out from time to time and scan the skies. I was never overly impressed with the telescope and attempted some adjustments to improve the picture with so success. I knew the eyepieces supplied with the telescope were not high end but used them until last December.
Well kids, it’s a whole new game now! If quality is based on weight, you will tip the scales in your favor. I was concerned that it may break the sight on my scope (it didn’t and probably won’t). The clarity the eyepiece provides is incredible and it has a zoom option. Too close? Adjust the eyepiece. Not enough detail? Adjust the eyepiece. Moving from plastic/glass eyepieces to coated lenses sure helped my telescope. I’m sure there are better eyepieces available but… if you are a backyard, casual observer, this might increase your enjoyment level. Kinda of speedy but I found it to be worth the price. Hope this helps.
For the price, this is a good optic, there are better, but not at this price point.
They say “Jack of all trades, master of none,” and that applies here. It’s not perfect. It’s a little dim at the smaller levels, and (again at the smaller levels) the focus is not quite as clear as a standalone 8mm lens would be. Make sure you’re gripping in the right places when adjusting. You wouldn’t want to accidentally unscrew the lens.
But if you’re starting out, and you don’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars on a complete set of lenses, this is a fantastic alternative.
I have an 8″ Dobsonian telescope. Sometimes I am not fast enough switching eye pieces and the object I am looking at has moved out of view by the time I have the new eye piece in or I accidentally bump the telescope out of position. It was nice to be able to easily find planets and then zoom in on them, rather than switching out eye pieces. But I particularly enjoyed this eye piece for looking at the moon. Zoom out, find an interesting feature, zoom in for a look, zoom back out etc.
This eye piece is great for kids, too. Less boring fumbling with kit and more action.
And if I ever do feel the need for better quality eye pieces this one will help me decide which ones I need.
Horreur! Que vois-je ? Une impuret qui se montre entre deux lentilles, bien visible en position 24 mm. Et me voil, peine reu, en train de dmonter la premire lentille de l’oculaire afin d’accder la cochonnerie pose sur la deuxime lentille. Je l’ai te l’aide d’une lingette lunette. je trouve inadmissible que des articles d’une telle prcision prsentent ce genre de dfaut. (D’o une toile de moins).
Ceci dit, passons l’oculaire. Comme depuis pas mal de temps le ciel est bouch et c’est un euphmisme, je me suis content d’un essai “terrestre”. En 28mm le champ est large sans excs, la vision est nette, prcise avec une perte de luminosit lorsque l’on grossit l’image mais a ce sont les lois de l’optique et elles sont inalinables.
La manuvre est douce lorsque l’on utilise le zoom et demande une lgre correction de la mise au point sans que cela soit bien gnant.
Donc, avec mes yeux de profane, c’est un bon oculaire. et pour l’avoir dmont je sais que les lentilles sont en verre et non en plastique. J’ai failli en acheter un moins cher mais je suis satisfait de mon achat. C’est quand cm^me du “Clestron”.
Je rpugne dire : achetez le ou pas, chacun fait selon son budget. Moi je suis satisfait de mon achat.
It’s a 8-24 mm eye
Very good optics amazing quality – I’m very pleased – used on a F1300 sky max127- at 24 mm is the full moon and 8mm fine detail of mountains and craters.
Worth buying for the money
Arrived today and first impressions were awesome. Good quality build. Also love the fact I can fit my T2 mount on it which I didn’t know about when first ordering. Even better now I know this. Can’t wait for the sun to set and stars to show up. Well worth the price. 10-10.
Absolutely crystal clear lens, easy to zoom and focus, top buy !!!
It’s a great eyepiece for casual sky viewing with a Newtonian scope; the ‘only lens you need’ for the most part. The almost-par zoom capability meant little re-focusing adjustment between low (24 mm) and high (8 mm) magnification, so I could quickly explore objects of interest without a lot of need for adjustment. Worked well with the 2X Barlow lens as well, although the light reduction at that magnification with dim objects was very noticeable.
Zoom action is a bit stiff; my hope is it’s just a built-in ‘tightness’ as opposed to a lubricant which may become stiffer with winter temperatures. There were no ‘click stops’ for separate focal lengths, just markings on the outer barrel . . . which isn’t a big deal, just an observation. Zooming was always smooth but tight. Solid mechanical arrangement.
As is typical for zoom lenses the effective aperture decrease at the higher magnification (8 mm) results in a noticeable dimmng. It was necessary to increase the focal length a bit to be able to still discern a dim spiral nebula in deep space. Viewing the moon was a delight, however, as that is normally so bright a neutral density or double-polarizing filter is necessary to reduce the intensity. Images remained sharp at all focal lengths.
Great addition to my accessories . . . but too long to fit into the space I have left in my larger accessories kit. However, don’t usually take that with me unless I’m planning a long observation session.
Comparison was done by both using a binoviewer’s 2 ports and switching back and forth, after a small scope (nexstar SE4) with and without a pretty low quality 2x Barlow(the one in Celestron kit, which creates a ‘brighter blob’ around planet in both EPs). Looked at moon/Saturn and Jupiter under heavy LP. Only the 24mm and the 8mm settings were compared.
Long story short, I don’t believe I can relaibly tell between the 2 under most of the above situations if someone else sets it up and let me peek through the EP without seeing what the EP is.
The pentax does have some advantages, it seems to be much better made (heavier, sealed) and is quite a bit bigger but whether it is optically superior is hard to say. Maybe the small and slow scope did not let it show its full power? Maybe it works better for DSO? Or maybe I haven’t looked hard enough for the differences? All are possible but for me it does not worth the asking price. Esp. because telescopes are in general quite fragile (reads not weather proof and unlikely to survive any drop), the mechanical excellence of the pentax is not of much use here.
Pentax does come with lifetime warranty though. But I can’t foresee needing to buy more than 5 replacements of the Celestron either.
The one major difference you will notice when you receive this is that it is larger and heavier than ordinary plossls. The rubber eyeguard can be reversed so that you don’t need to turn it down if viewing with glasses. You may have to rebalance your telescope due to the somewhat greater weight compared to ordinary three and four element single power eyepieces. Stated weight is 4.8 ounces. It also comes in a real nice case with a screw top as well as a rubber top cover and a plastic slip on cover for the bottom.
The image appears sharp over the field of view (an F5 telescope is a bit more demanding of eyepieces than say an F10 refractor). So this is a good eyepiece considering that it zooms from 24mm to 8mm. Apparent field of view is 40 degrees at 24mm and 60 degrees at 8mm. Refocusing is necessary in going from long to short or vice versa, but it isn’t too much trouble. Much easier than swapping out eyepieces in the dark anyway…
Note: there are many objects for which the optimal view is a finite point in the range of zooming. For those objects, it’s best to find that sweet spot and not try to zoom in too much. Also, it’s best to turn the barrel, the zooming, slowly to find that right spot. The main reason for having a zooming eyepiece is to avoid having a dozen different sized eyepieces, any eyepiece within the range of this eyepiece becomes redundant. Thus, it’s fine to have a 4mm eyepiece as this one only goes down to 8mm, or to have a 32mm since this one only goes up to 24mm.
The base of this eyepiece has a threaded adapter which allows filter inserts to be mounted to the eyepiece. And, it comes with its own nice protective container. The container has a threaded lid that screws on, and the lid has an extension that fits the bottom of the eyepiece — the eyepiece fits in the container upside down. The bottom and the top of the eyepiece also come with rubber dust caps.
All in all, this eyepiece is very much worth buying for its convenience, function, and the fact that with it one does not need a handful of specifically sized eyepieces.
If you’re reading this review and trying to decide on this eyepiece then, you’re probably, like me, a bit of a newbie in learning about this, so here’s what my experience was like with this. The telescope tube (optical tube assembly, or OTA) collects light from the sky and creates an image that you can explore with the eyepiece. The magnification of what you’re seeing in the sky is easy to calculate by taking OTA length / eyepiece length.
My 6SE (1500mm focal length) came with a standard 25mm eyepiece, so 1500/25mm = 60x magnification. This zoom eyepiece starts at 24mm, which is nearly identical magnification (62x) and zooms to 8mm, or 187x (3x greater magnification). But you’re just doing an optical enlargement of a section of the image that was created by the OTA, so the image you’ll then observe *is* larger, but it will also appear a lot darker, you’ll start to quickly realize that you don’t have suitable optics to easily focus and get a nice crisp image, and I find I start to notice the slight vibration that I introduce to the telescope when my head touches the eyepiece.
I sometimes use this zoom eyepiece with the similarly priced Celestron Barlow extender and I like that combination and am able to explore more, but it’s just thinking through what this can and can’t do. I’ve included two pictures simply taken with my phone peeping through the eyepiece looking at Jupiter at 24mm (zoomed out) and 8mm (zoomed in) to give a sense of the magnification. This doesn’t give any sense of the image quality or crispness.
So you start with the moon, it’s so big it’s easy to switch from your 40mm lens to a 8mm lens and not lose the moon. Then you try the same with Jupiter and Saturn…and then it’s not quite so easy to swap eye pieces and keep the planets in your field of view. The slightest nudges or bumps will move your telescope and you’ll lose the celestial object you’re looking at. So it’s back to finding it in your finder scope, switching to the 40mm eye piece…centering it and trying again to swap it out for smaller eye pieces while keeping it centered. It’s a bit of a pain.
The solution…is this eye piece. You just turn it and it zooms in. I took my astronomy club camping in October 2014 and we woke up at 2am to see Jupiter. With this eyepiece I was able to zoom in and give everyone a great look at Jupiter and it’s gallilean moons. Apart from the time I saw Jupiter through the 60″ Mt Wilson telescope…this is the best I’ve ever seen Jupiter.
I look forward to seeing Saturn through it in 2015!
Also the Celestron comes with a sturdy protective canister with a cap. Inside the canister you’ll find the eyepiece with top and bottom caps as well. The Meade does NOT come with a protective canister and DOESN’T come with a top cap either, only a bottom cap. I would like to leave the Meade eyepiece on my telescope for convenience but I don’t because I don’t have a means to protect the top lens of the eyepiece outside of my accessory case.
**Update**
The Celestron eyepiece doesn’t fully accept at least some 1.25″ non-Celestron filters. The filters screw on but not all the way (why I docked it one star). It’s annoying and it shouldn’t happen, but as far as I can tell the performance of my skyglow and nebula filters are unaffected by not being screwed in all the way. The Meade eyepiece does not have this problem as it seems to fully accept all the many filters that I have. Unless you’re really anal, I would still probably recommend the Celestron over the Meade.
The zoom is magnificent. Saturn was stunning at mid-high power (the highest power in my scope is over 250x, which is not going to look good in anyone’s scope without good seeing), and the view is crystal clear at lower power. I was able to spot at least five moons around Saturn from the light polluted skies of Pasadena, CA where hardly any stars are visible. Higher power dims the image, but I did not notice any strange optical peculiarities. I’m sure there are some, but for me this eyepiece is a dream come true.
I was even able to view the ring nebula from my front yard, and with medium power I was able to discern the two protrusions from the edges, a big step up over the meager 80x offered by the standard eyepiece. The ability to zoom on the fly makes keeping the target in the field of view incredibly easy.
The piece is quite heavy because of the extra complexity, but doesn’t feel overly bulky. The zoom is controlled by twisting the textured part of the outside, which others have reviewed to be rather stiff and difficult to turn. I can’t join that chorus, as i have no problem zooming out so long as I grip the smooth base and twist the textured sides. The action is smooth and holds firm.
Basically, this thing is amazing. I would pay twice as much for this and still feel like it was a bargain.
I believe the technology has improved so much in the past few years that the original stigma associated with zoom lenses is largely vestigial. I consider myself to be a hobbyist; I make no claims to being some elite seasoned astronomer. I’m simply an amateur that enjoys spending a couple nights a week gazing into the cosmos, and if you consider yourself to be in the same boat then BUY THIS EYEPIECE.
When this zoom first came in, I spent an hour or two comparing the image quality of different steps of the zoom to equivalent focal length Orion Sirius Plossl eyepieces. My verdict? There was absolutely NO reason to use the Plossls. AT ALL. I am so pleased with this eyepiece that I don’t even bother taking my fixed focal length eyepieces on most trips any more. For the price and the utility that this zoom offers, there is simply no better deal. The fact that there is a built in T-thread for astrophotography is simply icing on the cake.
The eyepiece comes with a nice hard plastic shell that makes transporting it safe and easy. It is a little bit on the heavy side, so if you are equitorially mounting your scope, you will probably have to re-balance the whole deal. If anyone is wondering about measurements here are a few estimates, NOT INCLUDING the base that should sit inside of your focuser / Barlow lens:
– With the eyecup up: 8.5 centimeters
– Without the eyecup: 7.25 centimeters
Regarding the zoom action, it is stiff enough that you won’t accidentally shift focal lengths, but it is also smooth enough that you can rotate it without holding the base of the eyepiece with your other hand.
.Great product .Well made High quality topics.
Superb views of Orion nebula
The only other minor gripe is the direction of rotation from minimum to maximum magnification is anti clockwise contrary to what I assumed and got it wrong a number of times until it sunk into my ageing brain cells but perhaps that’s just me!
My original 25mm eyepiece which came with the telescope will still probably get used occasionally because of the reason above.
However this is I feel the best telescope accessory I have bought and anyone pondering about getting one I would say go for it, Christmas is coming, have a word with Santa:-)
So it works quite well at the maximum magnification, not quite so well at the minimum, when as well as giving a more restricted field of view than the 25 mm eyepiece, I feel star brightness is slightly less. It doesn’t make the 25 mm eyepiece redundant. Where it does score is in looking for objects on the limit of visibility. You can see them grow and shrink as you zoom in and out. The general optical quality is reasonable.
Amazon supplied the eyepiece with their usual efficiency. One of the UK dealers had kept me waiting for several weeks and eventually admitted that they didn’t know when I would get it.
Problems:
1) See above for distrortion issues. (Mine may have passed QC by mistake).
2) Weight. Small, beginner scopes are impacted severely. Most impacted are refractors, as they ‘balance’ on the mount.
3) No clicks during focal length. Must turn on light to see where length is.
4) Overall EP assembly gets loose. I needed to tighten the chrome sleeve to the body of the assembly every time I used it.
5) Mine cracked during use on a cold night? The focus changed and the view went distorted. No visible broken glass, but, something went loose (I can hear it when I shake the EP!)
With these things noted, I must say that while it worked- it worked great. I’m not sure if all of the glass was mutli-coated because I did get quite visible reflections- but, the view was clear with a nice big exit pupil. So large in fact, I was able to use a high quality, multi-coated (multi lens) 3x achromatic Barlow lens with it- creating very crisp lunar views under exceptional seeing conditions. However, that only worked on my largest GOTO scopes: a 90mm refractor & 114mm reflector-both of which needed to be balanced with all of that weight mounted. Anything smaller was at risk of toppling over and could not be locked down hard enough to bear the excessive load.
So, if you have a smaller manual refractor, say 60mm, 70mm or 80mm or even a smaller manual reflector- make sure that your mount will bear the load and that you can acheive balance prior to buying one of these. Otherwise, you’ll be very frustrated!
I strongly recommend this EP to someone who has limited funds for buying a variety of high quality lenses. If purchased with a very high quality 2x Barlow, it will cover many lenses that can be purchased separately. I think mine passed QC in error, or was dropped during shipping because my distrortion issues & constant need of tightening haven’t been mentioned by other reviewers. Also, I cannot imagine that mine would ‘crack’ during use, unless something was already defective.
Now, I’m hoping that Celestron will repair or replace mine (it’s still under warranty), but, I don’t want my issues to prevent someone from seeing the value in this pretty high qaulity eyepiece. The glass is very clear, the exit pupil is very forgiving and the views can be tremendous!
Clear skies to all!
Dave