Surplus Shed Eyepieces

Has anyone used any of the eyepieces being sold by Surplus Shed? Particularly, the 2" 50mm or 54mm? 32mm Erfle? The prices on these are excellent, is the quality ok?

Gary

Hi Gary -

I used to have one from them that was a 40mm. It was nicely made, and had sharp optics. I didn't like it, though, because the eye relief was so extremely long, that it was hard to find the spot to position your eye to see through it. Also, it suffered from "kidney beaning" in my f/11 refractor.

For these reasons, I didn't like it - but the optics were nice and sharp, and the price is right for them.

-Jake

I recently got the Surplus Shed 38mm Erfle to be my "finder" eyepiece and have been meaning to post some sort of review of it. I have a 10" f9.6 newtonian and recently got to try it in a 10" f5 scope also.

The advertised FOV is 60 degrees, but I think it is a bit less than that. The field stop is a bit fuzzy, and if I position my eye to avoid blackouts, then I think the FOV is a closer to 50 degrees. The eye relief is long, but I'll bet it is not as long as a 50mm Plossl. The sharpness is OK in the middle, but falls off over the outer half. As I said before, that field stop is fuzzy and so are the stars that are near it. The construction is OK, and after talking to SS on the phone, I found out that they basically make these to order.

As a finder eyepiece, I am satisfied that it does what I wanted. (The price was right.) I would prefer a little more FOV, and a little more "comfortable" eye relief (don't know if it needs to be shorter or longer). I would never confuse this with a "premium" eyepiece, but hey, it was only $40. It won't stop me from saving up for a Pentax or Televue or...

Now my question is how this would compare to those 50mm Plossls they sell. Anyone do that?

Charlie