Orion is one of those brands that new astronomers become quickly familiar with, as they make a lot of high-quality gear for budget prices.

But how does their most popular eyepiece kit stack up?

Let’s take a closer look.

TLDR: 

Of all the starting kits we tried, this had the best range of magnification options, though the glass leaves a little to be desired. Every eyepiece kit is a compromise.

The Kit Component Break Down

This kit from Orion comes with five eyepieces, a Shorty Barlow lens, and six filters. It also comes with a nifty little aluminum case to carting all of that stuff around.

The eyepieces included cover just about any range of viewing:

• 40mm Sirius Plossl
• 17mm Sirius Plossl
• 10mm Sirius Plossl
• 7.5mm Sirius Plossl
• 6.3mm Sirius Plossl

This is more than enough to give any new viewer an eyepiece for every conceivable target their new scope will find, and the quality is pretty decent for the price.

The inclusion of a 40mm eyepiece is stellar. Finding a decent low-power eyepiece can be an extra chore and expense, as these wide-angle viewfinders are rarely included in such kits, or even with telescopes.

Panning the heavens and observation of deep-sky objects often require an eyepiece like this, and without it a large part of the hobby is wasted on the new astronomy until they can supplement their kit. Problem solved.

The kit also comes with filters, which color the view to help tease out different features on planets or the moon, such as the ice caps on Mars or the cloud bands on Jupiter.

The Sirius Plossl

This is one eyepiece collection that I’ve used extensively for hundreds of hours. The lenses are coated with magnesium fluoride on every air surface, so they are truly multi-coated (sometimes that word can take on different meanings).

Unfortunately, they aren’t fully multi-coated, and while they are light-years ahead of anything that would have be available to Messier, the coatings aren’t the best out there.

That said, Plossls are a 4-element design. When coated decently, they still allow for a lot of light transmission, but if you are one to look at stats then you might think fully-multicoated is the way to go. The Celestron equivalent to this pack has that feature, but makes sacrifices in other areas.

All in all, Sirius Plossls are very good beginner eyepieces, and have their place. When you move up to more expensive offerings, you will still have these as spares for loaners and star parties.

I can personally attest to how well they hold up, as mine were stored in bad conditions in an outbuilding for two years with some other astro stuff. One of my RKE eyepieces fell apart after cold winters and harsh conditions, but the Sirius eyepieces are still working great. They are constructed quite well.

The Shorty Barlow

Probably Orion’s staple offering, the simple 2x Barlow lens is a simple 2-element telenegative addition to the kit that really rounds out the magnification ranges from the eyepiece offerings.

In fact, we’ve found this kit to be the best balanced offering out there in terms of the well placed focal lengths. When paired with the Barlow, you really do get 10 different magnifications that can all be useful to give your target that perfect framing, and this variety is the staple hallmark of this kit for a beginner.

The Barlow lens is also fully coated for better light transmission, but not the best on the market in that respect.

The Filters

The planetary filters that come with this kit are just as good as any others we’ve tested. They thread easily into all of our 1.25” eyepieces, and they work well for teasing out the detail on different planets, as well as sometimes giving some color to other celestial objects.

The moon filter is a 13% transmission filter, which basically cuts the incoming light by eight.

Overall Review

The biggest takeaway from this kit is the eyepiece range that you don’t see in similar kits. The simple fact that it includes a 40mm eyepiece shows that Orion cares more about viewing experience, and less about catering to misled ideas stemming from claims on low-quality scope packaging, convincing everyone that magnification is all a scope is good for.

The eyepieces are also balanced well with the Barlow, making the whole range of lenses useful on different target, and letting the user decide how to best frame their target, and giving them the means to do it.

It would be awesome if Orion could step up their bargain kits with fully-multicoated glass, but in this price range, everyone cuts a corner here or there to deliver a product. In general, when actually viewing the night sky instead of stat-tracking optics, the eyepieces do their job admirably and any fiddling percentage of lost light isn’t going to be noticeable, especially to a newcomer.

In short, the Orion 1.25” Premium Telescope Accessory Kit is a balanced compliment to any new astronomy setup and won’t leave the purchaser wanting for a different magnification that isn’t included.

If you want the widest possible range of viewing options for the lowest cost, this is your kit.