MEADE SERIES 5000 5.5MM EYEPIECE - 1.25" Last updated: 12 February 2010

I bought a Meade Series 5000 5.5mm Plossl eyepiece mainly for use on my 8" LX200-ACF but I was curious how well it would perform on some of my ETX telescopes. It costs $69 from OPT. The eyepiece comes in a box and includes a registration card and a Meade Series 5000 product brochure, as seen in the photo on the right. There are no "eyepiece bottles" for the Series 5000 eyepieces, which to my mind is unfortunate. The eyepiece does come with plastic caps on both ends.

The eyepiece provides an apparent field of view of 60 degrees. The maximum magnifications on each telescope tested were: ETX-70AT = 64X, ETX-90RA = 227X, ETX-105PE = 264. This exceeded the theoretical maximum magnification for the ETX-90 and ETX-105.

Taking advantage of a break in the clouds, I tested the eyepiece on M42 and Mars. The eyepiece provided a nice view of the nebula and Mars with the ETX-70. I could even see the Mars North Polar Ice Cap. In the ETX-90, the views were both good, with some fuzziness evident (from exceeding the max magnification) on Mars and brighter stars. The ETX-105 suffered the most from exceeding the maximum magnification. On the ETX-70, stars remained nice and crisp to the edge of the field of view. If you have a short focal length refractor like the ETX-60/70/80, this eyepiece could be a good one to add to your collection. I will be testing the 5.5mm eyepiece on my 8" LX200-ACF and will write up the results on my Cassiopeia Observatory blog.

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