Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm

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Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
I have the same eyepiece as the Orion unit but it is sold under the pro-optic widefield name which is sold by Adorama. I compared it to a 6mm university optics ortho in my 16" F4.5 dob while viewing Saturn. The 6mm ortho was slightly sharper but not by very much. The color rendition in Saturn's globe was actually much better in the Expanse eyepiece which surprised me. The widefield in the expanse unit certainly helps tracking an object in a dob at high power. There is some softening at the edge but it's not bad. I think this eyepiece is a bargain at 49.95.

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:9 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=159941

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
I tried this out on Castor with an 8" f/4. Got clean and sharp separation--and even saw distinctly different colors for Castor A and Castor B. I checked these visual colors against their spectral types. Textbook! Later, I tried this 6mm on the Orion Nebula's trapezium with a friend's 13" Coulter. Ooohs and aaahs all around. This lens kicks butt...and for only fifty bucks. Al Nagler better make his money soon, because the Taiwanese are coming to eat his lunch.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:9 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=175604

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Great bargin. The eyepiece is as clear as my 7mm UO Ortho but with much wider fov and better eye relief. It works well on my f4.5 dob.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:9 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=176933

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
With my TV Pronto I get 80x,yet I can get the entire Moon in its vast field. Stars are pin sharp,although there is slight field curvature-nothing objectionable.Used with a barlow gives me 160x-no need to shift the scope every second! Looks like my 7mm lanthanum's out of a job.So much eyepiece for reletively lttle money.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:9 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=178725

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Rating eyepieces is pretty difficult because ther are so many variables involved. I just know that this eyepiece has served up some really nice views of Saturn with a Celstron Ultima Barlow on my Orion XT8. Yes, that is a magnification of 400x, the theoretical limit of an 8 inch telescope. At fifty bucks, I am very pleased with it. Added to that, its expanded field of view and nice eye relief make it a great value.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:10 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=192780

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Great field of view, very usable eye relief, nice build quality, and a fantastic price. The problem? It's not very sharp. Not at all. On the sun with a 75mm f/6.7 refractor and orion glass filter, it offered blurry views of sunspots (much less detail than was visible in an apogee zoom set at 7.4mm; less even than I could see in a bargain 9mm MA with a 2x barlow). On M44 it offered blurry star fields, again a less satisfying view than I got from even the very cheapest eyepieces I have. It's also much dimmer than most. Very disappointing.

Overall Rating: 4
Optics:5 Value:7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=214832

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
I purchased this eyepiece to get higher magnification with an 80mm f/5 refractor. Daytime views looked promising. Deepsky looked good - sharp, wide field. Severe ghost image made the eyepiece unusable on the moon. I compared the view to a vixen zoom set at 8mm and the vixen showed no ghosting(or at least no noticable ghosting that detracted from the view).
I am a novice/intermediate observer.

Overall Rating: No Vote
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=253799

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
A bargain eyepiece at £36, especially considering the specs. Wide fov and good eyerelief. Reasonably sharp and bright. Great if you have a dob, the wide field really helps. Compared to a Lanthanum 7mm and Ortho 6mm, the optical quality isn't quite as good. But then it's only one third of the price. The Taiwanese/Chinese really are coming along leaps and bounds now. Japan, USA and Europe had better watch out.

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:8 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=254347

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
I know we hear this alot lately... but for the price the expanse line is great. Don't expect Japanese perfermance at Chineese prices. I am very partial to the Ultima and Ultrascopic line, but prefer the expanse 6mm becaue of the wide aparent field for higher powers. So I find it getting quite abit of use on the planets and resolviong gloubulars. Actually quite surprised at how it compared to the 6mm TV Radian. The field stop not as shart, eye relief not as good, coatings not as good, but the surprise here was that the resolution was not distinguishable between the two eyepieces! I could pick out just as many stars with as the expanse. This surpirsed me considering the $150+ price gap between these two oculars. You won't be dissapointed by this one by any means, a good value!

Overall Rating: 8
Optics:7 Value:9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=256788

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Like in my review of the Expanse 9mm, I wanted to replace my venerable 6mm UO ortho with something with longer eye relief. I didn't think the Expanse would be good enough, so I did a side-by-side comparison with the 6mm Vixen LV and 6mm UO ortho.

Surprisingly, the Expanse has held its own quite admirably on deep sky and planets. It's images were nearly as bright as the ortho and brighter than the Vixen. It was sharp over just about 80% of the field - but this is actually a wider usable field than in the 45 degree FOV's of the the ortho and LV. Eye relief is generous, though not as long as the LV, but eye placement was trickier. As with the 9mm, its contrast was not as good as either the ortho or the Vixen.

What did this mean in practical terms? The Expanse did well on deep sky, particularly nebula like the Swan, Dumbell and Ring and also did well on globulars and open clusters. Contrast and sharpness was not as good as the LV, but the images were significantly brighter and the FOV much wider. The wider FOV and brighter image nearly equalled the LV.

The Expanse's on-axis planetary performance was also quite good. Both the ortho and the LV are supposed to be much better planetary eyepieces, but the Expanse wasn't far behind them. The Expanse equaled the ortho in brightness and beat it in eye relief, making it easier to catch those moments when seeing cleared. It's images were brighter than the LV with similar eye relief. The only drawback was a little off-axis ghosting. In the end, the Expanse's brightness and comfortable eye relief meant that I could see equal detail on Jupiter and Mars, even though it had a little less contrast.

Now the big knock - on the Moon, the 6mm Expanse falls apart. Ghosting was so severe (much worse than in the 9mm Expanse) that it was completely useless for lunar observing. If this is your only high power eyepiece and you want to look at the Moon, forget it.

Bottom line - I was planning to keep the 6mm and 9mm LV's, but I'm going to hang onto the Expanses into the fall to test them on Jupiter and Saturn. Until then, at $49 new and $40 used, the Expanse is a bargain unless you frequently look at the Moon. Again, if lunar observing is one of your favorites, skip the Expanse line.

Overall Rating: 7
Optics:7 Value:8
Weight: 6 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=258110 

How do the Expanse EPs perform in fast scopes?  I have an 8" f5 scope.  My daughter's scope is a short tube 4.5" scope (f4.4).

Thanks.

Jeff Roseberry
Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Same comments that everyone else is making . It does have ghosting on planets and probably the moon also (you can see what I observe here). My biggest suprise was the near sharpness to the edge in f/4.5 telescopes. a 10,16,and 13 all from different manufacturers. Not the greatest optics and a little on the low contrast side but try to find an affordable wide field eyepiece out there that has sharpness to nearly the edge. It would be difficult. Well worth the money and I use it and the 9mm every night. They are of a different design than the 15 and 20 which have horrible edge sharpness problems with fast scopes.

Overall Rating: 8
Optics:7 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=329315

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
I don't know if I happened to get a bad ep, but I am returning the one I just purchased.
The ghosting on mine is terrible. My first look was the Trapeezium. At first I thought I saw a satellite going through the field only to realize it was a reflection of a star.
Later I looked at Saturn, sure enough there was a perfect ghost image of that planet easily visible.
We're talking bright ghost images through a 10 inch newtonian. From what I've read here and elsewhere, I believe I probably got a lemon. Thankfully Orion is reputable and has an excellent return program, so I wont hold it against them.
This is a NO VOTE because of that, otherwise I'd have to give it a ZERO

Overall Rating: No Vote
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=330140

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Bright, Wide field of view, Distortion in 1/3 of the [outer] field, field edge loses contrast. Lots of apparent field of view, but not easy to work with [for a wide field with a supposed good eye relief] using telescopes on light to medium heads and/or tripods.

Centerfield looks good.

Inexpensive.

Overall Rating: 6
Optics:6 Value:6
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=394422

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Some coma in faster scopes, but very good contrast. Excellent for the price, they beat out many of my more expensive EP's. This and the 9mm are the best of the line.

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:9 Value:10
Weight: 7 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=419916

Orion Expanse Wide-Field 6mm
Assume this is the same eyepiece sold as the Skywatcher Ultrawide here in the UK. Like most people I bought this for a wide field with a good eye relief - my other 6mm is a TAL Plossl with particularly hopeless eye relief, but very good optics.

I have found this eyepiece to be really useful on nebulae and star clusters. It is great to have this amount of field with high magnification (200x in my 10" newt.) and useable eye relief. M13 is great in it, the magnification helping to resolve it very nicely. I use it every night I am out for something or other. So for the price (£37) it has been a great success and I have just ordered the 9mm.

Unfortunately with 8 months useage behind me, there are some very real downsides to be aware of if you are thinking of getting this eyepiece.

It suffers very badly from blackout - eye positioning is tricky. This makes it difficult for inexperienced users.

It has a huge amount of glare and internal refelction. I agree with the other voter who said it is basically useless on the moon, and the 'extra' versions of Saturn and other bright objects that you can see are a bit distracting.

Lastly it is just not nearly as sharp as my Plossl. This is very noticeable on the planets. The impression you get is that is never quite in focus, whereas with the Plossl it much easier.

I still use it though ...... a lot!

Overall Rating: 6
Optics:5 Value:8
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=423323

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