Hioptic 6" Maksutov Cassegrain NMC1900x152 Telescope Review

HiOptic 152 > Eyepieces

HIOPTIC PLOSSL EYEPIECES


TWO PLOSSLS

The telescope came supplied with a couple of eyepieces. These were 6.5mm and 20mm Plossls with fully coated optics. They seemed very similar to Meade Plossls in weight and size but the  20mm lacked any fringer grips and the coating used was a light blue rather than green. The edges are blackened to stop reflections along the edges of the lenses. They came with handy bolt cases to keep them clean, however as with most of the items supplied in this kit, they arrived having looked slightly used, in this case having small white hairs everywhere.


Eyepieces

BREAKDOWN

The lenses can be broken down for cleaning. The rubber eye cup can be removed revealing a ridge that can be used for afocal camera mounts like the Scopetronix Digi-T. The barrel has threads that allow filters to be screwed into them. Unfortunately no filters were offered with this kit dispite being part of the manufactures specs.

Eyepieces open

TOO MUCH ZOOM!

One issue that cropped up during testing was that the supplied eyepieces offer too much zoom. When combined with the 1900mm focal length of this telescope the 20mm gives 95x zoom and the 6.5mm gives 292x zoom. Both require reasonable seeing conditions to gain focus. Not a problem for a seasoned telescope users who understands about such things as atmospheric disturbance but telescope newbie may worry that they have a duff scope on their hands and return it!

SUMMARY

Hioptic made a mistake not providing a wider eyepiece than 20mm with this scope. Most suppliers use a 26mm. A wider 40mm or 32mm eyepiece should be next on any potential purchasers shopping list so the can fit the complete moon in the eyepiece!