Customer Reviews

Meade Ultra Wide Angle 4.7mm 1.25-Inch Eyepiece

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've used this eyepiece extensively now and can say that it performs up to my expectations. My scope is a 16" f/4.5 and the 4.7mm gives me a magnification of 390X. That is about as high as I can practically go on an average night. What is nice about it is that 80-90% of the field of view is usable. Being 82 degrees, I can keep an object in the field a lot longer than with a narrow field style. At public events, I am able to put it on one side of the field and let two people look before I have to nudge it back.

Optically, the view is excellent considering the magnification. Venus has just the hint of a color fringe but Jupiter looks magnificent, though it tends to blur in and out of focus on most nights. With deep sky objects it is a mixed bag as sometimes it draws out details while at other times it fades the object too much. With the wide field of view, I'm able to play around with it and have found it useful for sussing out details in some of the brighter galaxies.

Mechanically, it is a solid eyepiece. The most annoying problems are the eye lens dust cap which is junk, and the other is grease. The eyepiece has a rotating barrel so one can use the eye lens as a flat surface of have it recessed to shield scattered light (or just to center the eye better). The problem with this is twofold. First off is when the barrel is extended all the way, it exposes the underside of the eyepiece casing which is covered with grease. A careless move and it's grease on the hands. The other annoyance is that to put the EP back in the case, the barrel must be screwed down to the original position or it won't fit. Another side issue is the over-large boxes which are tough to store in the eyepiece case.

Overall, I consider this a mid-priced eyepiece with high end performance. For those of you that don't want to take a second mortgage on your house just to get a high end eyepiece, this Meade UWA works as an outstanding substitute. Highly recommended.

I have and ETX-105 with a tripod mount. This objective requires a very solid mount and a lot of stability. I could not get it to focus at all with a 2x Barlow. Excellent for near observing, but the focusing problems made deep space a problem.