Seben Zoom Telescope Eyepiece 7.5-22.5mm 1.25" 31.7mm SZ1 Astronomy

What a fine piece of equipment. I used it last night for the first time and it's a game changer. No longer do I need to pull out the 22mm eyepiece, put in the 4mm eyepiece, and fiddle about with the focus, all the time trying not to disturb the direction of the telescope, then adjust the right ascension to catch up with whatever I am looking at. I just zoom in the eyepiece, it even stays in focus.Up till now I've been using the eyepieces supplied with my celestron newtonian, but you can't put a filter on them, and you need to refocus whenever you change them over. Now all these difficulties have been overcome with this one zoom eyepiece.It was well packaged in a plastic recepticle in a padded envelope. Delivery was about a week after the order was placed.Now I don't need at 10mm and 15mm eyepiece to fill the void between the supplied 22mm and 4mm. Excellent value for money.The optics quality is really good, very sharp focus, very smooth zoom control.If there is one thing I would have liked, it is to have a cap supplied for the eyepiece so that I can leave it in the telescope without fear of the lens getting damaged, but I can put up with that.

Gave this an initial whirl last night with my new telescope (8 inch Reflector on Dobsonian mount). Saw Jupiter and several of its moons, and also enjoyed good views of the surface of the moon. Very handy being able to locate an object in the sky with the lens set wide, then zoom in on it only having to re-centre it slightly if at all. Will also be trying it out on my terrestrial refractor scope. Comfortable too, with reasonable eye-relief - may be useful if you wear glasses.

Overall, a fair product for the price. It is built with plastic and some metal, but there is nothing exceptional about it. The images are *okay*, but cheaper optics of a fixed focal length provide significantly better views. The protective case that it comes in provides good enough isolation from dust and impacts, but it is difficult to use in the dark. It's just a standard 1.25" telescope barrel, and as such, fits like one. There's not really much to say about this product beyond that. It's a telescope eyepiece, nothing special, not bad.

Having tested it out this evening I can confirm that this is a very good piece of kit, and it is certainly exceptional value for money at this price point. Having viewed various objects including the Moon, Jupiter and various star clusters I found that the views obtained were consistently sharp and clear. The ability to zoom in and out is valuable when viewing solar system objects but is also very helpful for deep sky work. The lower power can be used when finding an object, with a higher power for detailed viewing. Considering the price this eyepiece managed to exceed my expectations and I can recommend it.

Brilliant little lense. Only had the opportunity to use briefly as cloud cover, however moon was bright and used it for a spot of lunar viewing. The results were exceptionally impressive. Good clear view and fantastic magnification. I would highly recommend this to anyone thinking about buying it. If I had to give a downside it would be that you do have to hold the body of the lense to move the zoom but a small price to pay for this fantastic lense. Very quick delivery as well. Thank you.

Modest sized and weight zoom lens for astronomical telescopes. Offers clear views at different magnifications. Suitable for use on telescopes and larger finder scopes which accept interchangeable eyepieces with a 1 1/4", 31.7mm barrel diameter. Note focus alters with magnification, i.e. not parfocal. Good eye relief so suitable for spectacle wearers. Some chromatic aberration noticeable with brighter objects, e.g. when viewing the Moon. Great value for money, especially so as it comes with a plastic 'bolt case'. Would I buy again, yes undoubtedly.

This eye piece is a perfect match for a cheap telescope and that's not a bad thing! If you're coming from high end eye pieces you will notice the internal reflections and issues with imperfect lenses on this eyepiece. But despite being imperfect it is completely usable! You see can stars, planets, nebulas, and galaxies with this eye piece. The zoom allows it to be your entire collection of lenses in one, and its affordable enough to match with even the most basic telescope. For me, I have a couple nice eye pieces and if I could do it again, I'd have not bought them and just had this one.

Tried this for the first time last night. Used it on a f5 12" Dob. Interestingly it has a narrow field of view at the longer focal length. This widens as you zoom in. Performance was moderate to say the least. Stars to one edge of the field were distorted. Would only really recommend for lunar viewing where point distortion is not so noticeable. Wouldn't recommend as main eyepiece. It's cheap and cheerful and you get what you pay for.