Meade 1.25" Plossl Wireless Illuminated Reticle Eyepiece - 9mm # 07068

The eyepiece is just what I expected, good quality, good crosshairs. It arrived on time and once again, Agena proves itself an excellent source of just not an extensive range of astronomy products, but a reliable source of knowledge on how to use them.

I purchased the Meade Plossl 9mm Illuminated Reticle Eyepiece to employ it is as a high precision tool for centering alignment stars on my GoTo/PushTo mounts. Since there is no factory preset to know when the crosshairs are exactly centered, you have to use an iterative process (akin to collimation) to align them manually by using a punctual object (i.e. a star or a glint from a distant terrestrial object) while looking through the scope. Once it’s done, it does an excellent job as a high power, short focal length centering eyepiece, none currently available new in the market.

However, if you unintentionally disturb the thumb screws, you risk losing your time-consuming crosshair alignment. To avoid this potential hassle, I simply replaced the original thumb screws with a pair of M4, 10mm long, Stainless Steel (Grub) Set Screws with Hex Socket Head that can be adjusted with a regular 2mm Hex Key (Allen wrench). Once installed, you proceeded to accurately center the crosshairs by adjusting the set screws while looking through your scope and once finished you have the perfect high power illuminated centering eyepiece for extracting the last ounce of accuracy out of your GoTo mount or DSC computer!

The red LED illuminator on its lowest setting is a bit brighter than required, but it can be easily corrected with a black sharpie!

The quality and function are impressive and is very helpful in aligning to guide stars. On the side are the coin battery holder, on/off switch and variable intensity control.

Does what is intended: High power centering. Great for DSC's. My only minor complaint is that it is too easy to accidental move the recticle off center via the knobs in the dark. So just be careful.

Pros:
Lightweight,Easy to Use,Quality Lenses,Strong Construction

Cons:
Led A Little Too Bright

Comment:
Bought for aligning my scope using two stars method. This 9mm give me good magnification so I can be more precise. The only annoyance is that the LED even at low setting is a little more bright than I want. But a good solid performer nonetheless.

Best Uses:
Astronomy

Location:
QC, Canada

Pros:
Lightweight,Quality Lenses,Accurate,Strong Construction,Compact

Comment:
My Meade 9 mm illuminated reticle eyepiece (cordless) arrived packaged in a brand titled cartoon box wrapped by a closable balloon-textured nylon sac. Before my first use, by rotating the upper section of the eyepiece counter-clockwise I was able to do the diopter adjustment for my 55 years old presbiopic eyes.
The Plossl design of the eyepiece conserved pinpoint star visualization up to near the edge of the FOV in my rather fast scope, Orion 10" f/3.9 Newtonian astrograph, even when barlowed. I have been using the reticle eyepiece for both three-star alignment and drift alignment. The reticled pattern saved a lot of time for me during three-star alignments, besides the advantage of increased accuracy. Many times, 9 mm focal length feature of the eyepiece did not require it to be re-barlowed during correction of secondary minor shifts. Availability of the intensity control of the illumination enabled me to target faint stars whenever there weren't a bright one on the meridian.
I, also, will use it on a guidescope, as soon as I own one.
However, during my learning period, in the dark, I accidentally unscrewed the cross-line reticle-separating set screws a bit many times, instead of the one for fixation of the eyepiece to the focuser adapter, which is similar and rather close to them. Following tiresome affords to re-center the reticles I found a solution by dying the set-screws to black ,so as rendering them unseen in the dark . One major drawback for the use of this eyepiece is that there isn't a manual explanation or a built-in index mark or an external template coming with the eyepiece, to guide and facilitate the accurate centering of the crosshair reticles. If any of them has been existed , then one could have enjoyed the advantage of spacing adjustment of the paired reticles, instead of even trying not to touch them anymore intentionally or unintentionally, in avoidance of the subsequent boring re-centering.
Anyhow, accounting all its features Meade illuminated reticle eyepiece is worth for its affordable price, and I assure anybody intending to have it in their equipment, that, it is mandatory for precise all-purpose guide star alignments.

Best Uses:
Astronomy

Location:
Adana, TURKEY