Weasner's OPT Gold Accessory Kit Review

OPT Gold Accessory Kit

Last updated: 11 October 2008

When I ordered the 8" LX90-ACF in March 2008, I also ordered the OPT Gold Accessory Kit. That's the "mystery box" mentioned in my LX90-ACF Unpacking Report. It costs $169.95 with a telescope purchase or $269.95 without a telescope purchase. Included in the Kit are:

I first used the 15mm 1.25" eyepiece (fully multi-coated with black edges, apparent FOV = 65°) on my ETX-125 (130X) to view Saturn. Saturn and its Ring system appeared very crisp and the colors were very vivid. Stars at the edge of the field-of-view had very little coma. Then I viewed the M81 and M82 galaxies. Both were very nice in the 15mm. Continued use of the 15mm eyepiece with my ETX-90RA and ETX-125 showed this to be a quality eyepiece that presents highly detailed views of objects. Later I used it on Jupiter, stars, and DSOs with the 8" LX90-ACF (yielding 133X) and the image brightness and clarity with this eyepiece are dramatic. Definitely a keeper eyepiece.

I attached the 2" diagonal to the 8" LX90-ACF. It is heavier (obviously, being all metal) than the standard 1.25" diagonal but doesn't dramatically change the telescope balance, with or without eyepieces inserted. It has the standard SCT thread so no need for an extra adapter to attach it to the standard SCT port. I had no problems using it and did not notice any degradation in image quality versus the 1.25" standard diagonal.

Both 2" eyepieces (fully multi-coated with black edges) were also tested on the 8" LX90-ACF. The 30mm eyepiece (67X, apparent FOV = 70°) has nearly the same actual FOV but with a higher magnification than the 50mm eyepiece (40X, apparent FOV = 54°). Both clusters of the Double Cluster open star cluster were easily seen in both eyepieces and presented a beautiful sight. Stars were nice points of bright light all the way to the edge of the field of view. The Pleiades open star cluster was all nearly within the same field of view on both eyepieces. The brighter stars did show some very slight coma right at the field edge but not so badly that it detracted from the view. The 50mm eyepiece has a lot of eye relief, which for some users may take some getting used to. So far my only tests were under a sky brightened by a day past First Quarter moon. I look forward to using these eyepieces under a dark sky.

The plastic, foamed lined case is a basic case with room for some additional accessories. It is not waterproof but for most users that should not be a problem. It will protect your accessories during typical use.

The cleaning cloth is useful for occasional cleaning of your eyepieces. But it is not meant to replace a cleaning brush or good optical cleaning solution.

I did not try out the Deep-Sky Planner Special Edition software as it is limited to Microsoft Windows only. It would have been nice if OPT had instead provided a multi-platform solution, as there are many excellent applications that run on both Macs and PCs. But if you use Windows and don't already have something, you may find Deep-Sky Planner useful. If you want more information about Deep-Sky Planner, visit their site: http://www.knightware.biz/dsp/.

So far I'm impressed with the eyepieces and star diagonal in the OPT Gold Accessory Kit. When you purchase your next telescope from OPT, or if you want to add to your collection of accessories, consider the OPT kits (they have several "levels" available).

I will update this page as I use the eyepieces and star diagonal on my new 8" LX200-ACF.