Has anybody got any experience of Soligor eypieces?
I had ordered a 6mm Celestron Omni Plossl, which the supplier has a delay on and they have offered me, what they say is, a more expensive Soligor 6mm Plossl at no extra cost. I'm impatient for delivery so I told them to just ship it.

So if anyone wants to comment on Soligor plossls, I'd be glad of the feedback.

Has anybody got any experience of Soligor eypieces?
I had ordered a 6mm Celestron Omni Plossl, which the supplier has a delay on and they have offered me, what they say is, a more expensive Soligor 6mm Plossl at no extra cost. I'm impatient for delivery so I told them to just ship it.So if anyone wants to comment on Soligor plossls, I'd be glad of the feedback.

Never used one but it's not a more expensive eyepiece, cheaper in fact at €25. I think it may have been better to wait for the 6mm Omni.

Hi John,
My first scope was a soligor 4" refractor. I used their 25mm and 12mm lens and they were alright, they did the job.I don't have the 6mm lens. I also have a selection of Meade lenses and they would be a bit better quality than the Soligor.
Overall, they aren't the worst lenses but I can't really compare it to a Celestron as I don't have any of those lenses.

All the best
Sean

Gordon,
Yes, when I checked later on, I did find the Soligor 6mm offered for €25 at one site, athough the Soligor site itself has an RRP of €47.90. Makes you wonder ?
The reason I had ordered the Celestron Omni was, I was taken by the quality of my Omni 2x barlow, a solidly built unit with no drawbacks, I'd have no hesitation recommending it in it's price range.

Sean,
Wouldn't we all love some Meade eypieces, or come think of it Tele Vue. I'd never heard of Soligor before now, but if they're like Celestron they probably don't supply their own eyepieces as part of a scope package. Celestron use a cheaper eyepiece (re-branded) with their Nexstar range, not even their entry level E-Lux. I suppose it makes sense, the OTA and mount are what they concentrate on and every thing else is upgradeable.

Half (at least) the fun of this hobby is the acquisition of the 'necessaries', the anticipation of arrival, and then checking them out. If, as I'm sure the vast majority of us, are doing it on a tight budget, its even more fun to get something better than we expected. I'll review it when I've had a chance to try it out.

Cheer's and thanks for the comments.

Yep! i have 3 solligor eyepieces! all plossls! 25mm, 9mm, 4mm! The 25mm is brilliant!lovely crisp viewing! decent FOV! lovely for when saturn and the beehive cluster are close, plaeides and mars etc! the 9mm is decent and the 4mm is hard to focus with!
hope this helps! I recommend the 25mm!
Matthew

Sorry if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs but in case you don't already know........

If you're having trouble focusing using the 4mm, it may be that you're pushing the magnification beyond the limit of you're scope.
Rule of thumb:
- max usable magnification = 2 x aperture.
- magnification = Focal length of scope / Focal length of eyepiece.

e.g a 4" anyscope with FL=1000 using the 4mm eyepiece would be well outside its usable limits.

Sorry if that sounds patronising, its not meant to be, and before you point out the obvious flaw to me, I know, I'll be pushing the edge using the 6mm with a 2x barlow on my FL=660mm and aperture of 102mm scope.

The Soligor 6mm arrived, and I tried it out on Friday when I was in Wexford. I had been viewing Saturn with a 9mm Celestron eyepiece and 2x barlow, and this was giving crisp clean results.
I swapped in the Soligor 6mm and immediately had trouble trying to focus. In fact it wouldn't focus at all. OK so I removed the barlow and tried it on the moon, should'nt be any problems there right ? Wrong, again the soligor was still hard to focus, although it did eventually. Looking through this eyepiece was not a good experience. The edges of the FOV were markedly reddened, indicating colour aberration, and there was a marked reduction in brightness of the image.
If you're thinking of purchasing med-high power plossls, my advice is, stay away from Soligor, (I hope I can return it).

(I hope I can return it)

So do I...

An update on the Soligor 6mm.

With more experience I may have been too unkind in my previous review.
Firstly, of course it was hard to focus - Higher power eyepieces are, and my 102SLT scope may not have the best focuser anyway. With experience and practice I can now focus this eyepiece, and use it regularly to view Saturn. Having said that it's still hard to focus but mainly because touching the focus knob creates a vibration markedly at 220X (I'm also using a 2x barlow), an electric focus may be the way to go, but expensive.
Of course there was a reduction in brightness - the exit pupil is directly related to the focal length of the Eyepiece.
Exit Pupil = Focal length of Eyepiece/Focal Ratio of scope
in my case this meant a exit pupil of 0.93mm
As for Chromatic Abberation, yes there is a slight redenning around the edges, which was probably worsened by my previous inability to focus. But now seems markedly reduced, even unnoticable.

So, I can live with my new eyepiece and will not be so quick to judge in future, at least until I have ruled out my own inexperience. I have also learned that patience is rewarded in Astronomy. In future I will not review any item until at least a month or two of use.
If I have caused offence to Soligor or users of their equipment I unreserevedly apologise.

Fair play to you John and thanks for the update. Glad it worked out for you!

Cheers

Dave