Tele Vue Delos 6mm — image 1
Tele Vue

Tele Vue Delos 6mm

High power without the squint. The Delos 6 delivers a tack-sharp planetary view with a full 20 mm of eye relief, making 200x-plus genuinely comfortable.

91/ 100
Polaris Score
Optical quality · Immersion · Comfort · Value
See the breakdown ↓
What it's for
Low power · wide fieldHigh power · narrow field

A high-power eyepiece for planets, the Moon, tight doubles and small planetary nebulae, made effortless by long eye relief. A detail instrument that wants steady air, not a wide-field sweeper.

Apparent Field
72°
Barrel Size
1.25"
Eye Relief
20mm
Focal Length
6mm
From$438

Lowest in 90 daysLowest ever tracked

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 121 timesTracking since Jun 2026

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The spacewalk

You don’t look at a field.
You look into the sky.

Every number on the spec sheet matters less than one feeling: how much sky wraps around your eye. Widen the apparent field and watch the black edge of the eyepiece slip away.

72° apparent field

At 72°, the black rim sits out at the corner of your attention rather than in front of you.
Try this eyepiece on your own scope in the Simulator →
01What it's good at

What it's best at — and the trade-offs.

A full 20 mm of eye relief at 6 mm focal length, making high-power planetary study effortless.
Best at
✓A full 20 mm of eye relief at 6 mm focal length, making high-power planetary study effortless.
✓Pinpoint stars and high contrast to the edge of the 72-degree field, even at f/5.
✓Reference-grade sharpness on the Moon and planets, holding up against far pricier exotic glass.
Trade-offs
!Needs steady seeing to shine; on turbulent nights it just magnifies the boiling air.
!Expensive for a single high-power focal length, and heavy for its size.
!The 72-degree field is generous but won't envelop you like an 82 or 100-degree design.
02In your telescope

One eyepiece. A different job in every scope.

80× in a small refractor, 339× in a long SCT

An eyepiece has no magnification of its own — the telescope decides. The same eyepiece becomes 80× and 54′ of sky in a little refractor, or 339× and a tight frame in a long SCT. Here’s what it does across common scopes.

Small apo refractor
480 mm · f/5.5
Magnification
80×
True field
54′
Exit pupil
1.1 mm
A comfortable 80x and nearly a degree in the little refractor, more usable at low focal ratios than most 6 mm eyepieces.
8-inch Dobsonian
1200 mm · f/6
Magnification
200×
True field
22′
Exit pupil
1.0 mm
200x and a 22-arcminute field in the 8-inch Dob, right in the planetary and lunar sweet spot.
12-inch Dobsonian
1500 mm · f/5
Magnification
250×
True field
17′
Exit pupil
1.2 mm
250x in the big Dob for serious detail when the air cooperates, with the whole field sharp.
8-inch SCT
2032 mm · f/10
Magnification
339×
True field
13′
Exit pupil
0.6 mm
339x out of the long SCT, high-power double-star and small-planetary work, with seeing as the only limit.
Exit pupil is how wide the beam of light leaving the eyepiece is. Around 5–6 mm is bright and immersive under dark skies; push much past 6 mm and you waste light, and under light pollution a smaller exit pupil shows more contrast.
03In plain English

The numbers, in plain English.

6mm FL · 72° AFOV · 1.25"
20 mm eye reliefExtraordinary at 6 mm
Effortless
At this short focal length most eyepieces force your eye onto the glass; here you sit back and observe with glasses on.
72° apparent fieldRoom to drift
Immersive
Enough field that a planet has space to move in an undriven scope, without the bulk of an ultra-wide.
Edge sharpnessHolds at f/5
Pinpoint
Stars stay tight to the field stop in fast scopes, so the high-power view is sharp everywhere, not just the centre.
Steady-air dependentPhysics, not the glass
Wants calm skies
High power reveals the atmosphere as much as the target; save this eyepiece for the still nights.
04What comes alive

The targets this eyepiece was born for.

Jupiter, Saturn, The Moon, Mars at opposition, Double stars, Small planetary nebulae
JupiterComes alive
Jupiter
Belt structure, festoons and the Red Spot in a sharp, high-contrast, comfortable high-power view.
SaturnComes alive
Saturn
The Cassini Division and banded disc hold steady, with room to watch it drift.
The MoonComes alive
The Moon
Rilles and terraced crater walls at the terminator, comfortable to study for as long as you like.
Mars at oppositionExcellent
Mars at opposition
Polar cap and surface markings on the small disc, exactly what this focal length is built for.
Excellent
Double stars
Tight pairs split cleanly on the sharp, high-contrast field.
Small planetary nebulaeExcellent
Small planetary nebulae
The Ring and similar shells show real structure at this scale.
05Role in a collection

Where it sits in your eyepiece case.

Where it sits across 3 focal lengths

A good eyepiece collection isn’t a pile of glass — it’s two or three focal lengths that hand off from wide to tight. This is the anchor at the bottom of the ladder: the one you find and frame with. You buy it once, and it stays your low-power eyepiece for life.

32 mm
Low power · wide field
Find, frame and sweep. Your widest true field and the lowest useful magnification, the eyepiece you reach for first.
Veil Nebula · Pleiades · Milky Way star clouds
13 mm
Medium power · the workhorse
Where most deep-sky objects look their best, galaxies, globulars and planetary nebulae at a comfortable scale.
M13 · Ring Nebula · most galaxies
6 mmThis one
High power · detail
Planets, the Moon at the terminator, tight double stars and the smallest planetary nebulae. Steady-air nights only.
Jupiter · Saturn · lunar craters
06Build around it

What it pairs with.

The telescope · Pair it · Filter it
The telescope
What it goes into
Long SCT or Maksutov
High native focal length plus this eyepiece is a planetary specialist's pairing
8-inch and up reflector
Aperture plus steady air turns this into serious lunar and planetary resolution
Quality apo refractor
Its contrast rewards clean optics; a fine apo and the Delos is a lunar delight
Pair it
What extends its range
A wide-field finder eyepiece
Locate the target wide, then drop in the Delos to zoom
Another Delos or two
Parfocal within the line, so you barely touch the focuser swapping
Filter it
What transforms the view
Planetary colour filters
The high contrast base makes coloured filters more effective on belt and polar detail
Moon filter
Moon filter
Tames a bright gibbous Moon so you can study the terminator comfortably
07The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

91/100
91/ 100
Tele Vue Delos 6mm

As a high-power detail eyepiece it is close to flawless: sharp, high-contrast, and uniquely comfortable at a focal length where comfort is usually the first casualty. The only real marks against it are price and weight.

Optical quality
95
Immersion
85
Comfort
96
Value
80

Polaris weighs how well the eyepiece does the job it was designed for — optics, immersion, comfort and value — never list price or brand.

08Who it's for

An honest fit check.

You chase fine planetary and lunar detail and want it sharp, high-contrast and comfortable…
Buy it if you
✓You chase fine planetary and lunar detail and want it sharp, high-contrast and comfortable to study.
✓You wear glasses or hate pressing your eye into a tiny lens; 20 mm of relief at 6 mm is remarkable.
✓You own a fast scope and want edge-to-edge sharpness at high power without a corrector.
✓You want a buy-once high-power eyepiece that will never wear out its welcome.
Look elsewhere if you
!You observe from a site with poor seeing, where the atmosphere, not the eyepiece, limits high power.
!You mostly chase large, faint deep-sky objects at low power, the opposite end of the case.
!You want the widest possible field; 72 degrees is comfortable but not ultra-wide.
!You are on a budget, where a Celestron X-Cel 7mm delivers a good high-power view for a quarter of the cost.
09The numbers

Full specifications.

4 measured and stated values
Optical
Focal Length6mm
Apparent Field72°
Comfort & handling
Eye Relief20mm
Fit & build
Barrel Size1.25"
Editor’s Take

At 6 mm, most eyepieces bury your eye against a pinhole; the Delos hands you the same relaxed 20 mm you'd get from a low-power eyepiece. It is the difference between studying a planet and merely glimpsing it.

— The Skynocular verdict