Review on Astromania 1 25 Plossl Telescope Eyepiece by Jesse Azuse

This review is for the AstroMania 20mm Plössl eyepiece. This eyepiece was tested under very dark skies over Black Mesa State Park in Oklahoma with my Orion XT12G scope. Packaging/Delivery: I was very impressed with the care taken in packaging this eyepiece. I have included some photos of the unpacking process showing how securely it was packed. Shipping information was sent to me by AstroMania and the package arrived within the stated time frame. The eyepiece itself comes in a very nice plastic case, which I wish for all my eyepieces. Performance: I compare the performance of this eyepiece to the Orion Sirius Plossl 17mm eyepiece, which is the closest match to a 20mm eyepiece in their set. I started my test with Jupiter high and bright in the sky. Both eyepieces were able to resolve at least four cloud bands with excellent clarity at 75x for the 20mm and 88x for the Orion. Both eyepieces generally had the same field of view. Swapping back and forth I lost track of who was who, and from time to time I had to turn on the red light to check. Then I turned my attention to the open star cluster M67, which was very high in the sky. Comparing the fields, the brightness of the stars and the quality of the focus, I didn't notice any difference between them, both gave excellent views. Then I focused on a couple of very bright stars in the sky including Sirius and Procyon. Both eyepieces focused the stars to a very sharp spot with no noticeable difference. The moon hadn't risen when I did my tests so I couldn't compare them, but I observed with my Orion 17mm with excellent results. Based on my test results, I expect the AstroMania eyepiece to perform just as well as the Orion did on the moon. When you consider that the AstroMania currently costs half the price of the Orion, the value of this eyepiece is unmatched in its class.