Meade Series 4000 1.25" Super Plossl Eyepiece - 6.4mm # 07170-02

5.0 6.4 mm Meade Series 4000 1.25" Super Plossl Eyepiece

I purchased this eyepiece to complete my set as I had previously acquired both the 15 mm and 9.7 mm Super Plossl's by Meade. The eyepieces provide good eye relief and a sharp image, far superior to the original eyepieces supplied with the scope. I'm happy with my purchase.

This review was provided courtesy of AgenaAstro.com

2.0 Usable but nothing to brag about!

Performs reasonably well; Well made

Eye relief

This is another eyepiece that I obtaind used. I was curious to see how it would perform compared to a good Orthoscopic, so I tested it against an old EdsCorp 6mm Abbe Orthoscopic. There is really no comparison.

The Ortho easily outperforms the Super Plossl. While the ortho is not great on eye relief, the Super plossl is even worse. On nights of excellent seeing it did perform well in terms of color and image sharpness, bet never quite as good as the ortho. This was in both my 100mm f/6 achromatic refractor and in a 102mm f/13.2 Mak-Cass. On nights of mediocre seeing, the Ortho was hands-down the best!

Given that a decent orthoscopic can be purchased for only a few dollars more, I think that you would be far better off going with the Ortho. If you can find one of these used, this Super Plossl is a reasonable performer if the price is good.

2.0 6.4 Plossl

Average at best

Poor views and eye relief

Out of all my plossl eyepieces this one is my least used. I mostly use the 6.4mm for observing planets or the moon on a very clear night, but very rarely. Internal reflection on bright objects such as Jupiter and the moon shows with this eyepiece. In my 12.5 F/5 Discovery dob I do not get good contrast from this eyepiece and the stars stay fairly sharp to about 80% of the edge of the FOV and I really did not detect much coma. Granted the FOV is less than 52 degrees it works ok. The fit and finish are fairly nice on this eyepiece as with all of Meade's eyepieces. In my scope at a focal length of 1587mm this eyepiece gives me 247X, and it does not work to well when barlowed. This eyepiece is difficult to use if you wear glasses, or if you have a smaller scope. I would not recommend purchasing this alone, but mine came in a set. I would look at other options for a high power eyepiece.

1.0 Meade Super Plossl 6.4mm Series 4000

If you can find it on the used market you get it on the cheap.

Eye relief extremely poor, views equally poor. There are better plossls on the market.

When I bought my LX-90, for an extra $99 dollars Meade sent me the complete set of series 4000 eyepieces (minus the 26mm eyepiece that was already included with the telescope). All was kind of well until my first star party - until I had an opportunity to look through some Televue plossls and then compared them to my case of Meade plossls!

The 6.4mm was and probably is the worst of the lot. Eye relief is horrible. The stats are: Cost $79.95 new from Meade, FOV approximately 48 degrees (which might be a tad high), 4 glass elements, weight 0.2 lbs and eye relief 2mm. Comes boxed with caps.

For people wearing eyeglasses, you simply can't see through it. Views on a good night are moderate at best. On less than a good clear night, don't expect to use them. When I owned it, before selling the whole lot of Meade plossls, I just about never used it. I tried often but it was honestly hard to view through the 6.4mm.