I recently bought an Orion Explorer II zoom eyepiece. I thought that hey, why keep changing eyepieces when you can grab a zoomer and just twist the barrel? But now I have it, I don't know... it appears as though the in going for the zoom utility they have sacrificed image brightness. At 21mm it just doesn't have the same clarity or brightness as a bog-standard 26mm Meade Plossl. I've only being doing this for a year or two now and am still what you'd call a novice. Anyone else have anything to say on the matter?
Alan, in the Burren
Meade LXD75 6", a pair of Nikon 8x40's, not much else
  