What is a Plössl eyepiece?
Steve says: "A Plössl eyepiece comprises four glass elements arranged as two back-to-back achromatic doublets; or, in other words, two pairs of two glass lenses.
These eyepieces produce a ‘standard apparent field of view’ of between 50° and 56° with most set at around 52°.
If you're not sure what this means, read our primer on telescope eyepiece field of view.
This general purpose design gives good colour correction and an adequate feld of view at reasonable cost and they are often bundled with new telescopes.
On the downside, Plössls, especially at shorter focal lengths, suffer from short eye relief – a measure of how close to the eyepiece you have to place your eye to see the full feld of view."
Email Steve your astronomy queries to contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com and they could be answered in a future issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
