Apertura Super Wide Angle 10mm — image 1
Apertura

Apertura Super Wide Angle 10mm

A 10mm Apertura Super Wide Angle: a medium-high-power eyepiece for planets, globular cores and small planetary nebulae, from a budget 70-degree wide-field, a big step up from a kit Plössl for little money.

74/ 100
Polaris Score
Optical quality · Immersion · Comfort · Value
See the breakdown ↓
What it's for
Low power · wide fieldHigh power · narrow field

Medium-high power. At 10mm this is a medium-high-power eyepiece for planets, globular cores and small planetary nebulae; it is not meant for framing large deep-sky objects.

Apparent Field
70°
Barrel Size
1.25"
Eye Relief
9mm
Focal Length
10mm
From$69.95

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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.

68° apparent field

At 70°, 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 70-degree field that feels wide open after a kit eyepiece.
Best at
✓A 70-degree field that feels wide open after a kit eyepiece.
✓A 70-degree field that feels wide open after a kit eyepiece.
✓At 10mm it lands squarely in medium-high power territory, exactly where planetary and lunar detail lives.
Trade-offs
!Eye relief is tight at the short focal lengths.
!The edge of the field softens in fast scopes.
!Basic build compared with premium wide-fields.
02In your telescope

One eyepiece. A different job in every scope.

48× in a small refractor, 203× in a long SCT

An eyepiece has no magnification of its own — the telescope decides. The same eyepiece becomes 48× and 1.5° of sky in a little refractor, or 203× 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
48×
True field
1.5°
Exit pupil
1.8 mm
48× across a 1.5° field at a 1.8mm exit pupil, crisp medium power for galaxies, clusters and planetary nebulae.
8-inch Dobsonian
1200 mm · f/6
Magnification
120×
True field
35′
Exit pupil
1.7 mm
120× across a 35′ field at a 1.7mm exit pupil, crisp medium power for galaxies, clusters and planetary nebulae.
12-inch Dobsonian
1500 mm · f/5
Magnification
150×
True field
28′
Exit pupil
2.0 mm
150× across a 28′ field at a 2mm exit pupil, crisp medium power for galaxies, clusters and planetary nebulae.
8-inch SCT
2032 mm · f/10
Magnification
203×
True field
21′
Exit pupil
1.0 mm
203× across a 21′ field at a 1mm exit pupil, high power for planets, the Moon and tight doubles.
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.

10mm FL · 70° AFOV · 1.25"
Focal lengthHigh power
10mm
Gives 120x in an 8 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and about 203x in an 8 inch SCT, which is planetary and double-star territory. It is the eyepiece you reach for once you have found the target at lower power.
Apparent fieldWide
70°
Seventy degrees is wide enough to feel immersive and to keep an object in view for a reasonable time in an undriven telescope, without the outer-field demands that 82 and 100 degree designs place on fast optics.
Eye reliefTight
9mm
Nine millimetres means your eye sits close to the lens, so glasses are out and the eyecup position matters. Observers who wear spectacles for astigmatism should look at a long eye relief design instead.
BarrelStandard
1.25"
Fits any focuser or diagonal, and at 10 mm the field stop for 70 degrees sits well within the barrel, so no field is being lost to the format.
OpticsBudget wide-field
Multi-coated
Multi-coating raises transmission and suppresses internal reflections compared with a single-coated eyepiece. This is a value design, so expect a sharp centre with softening toward the edge at fast focal ratios.
04What comes alive

The targets this eyepiece was born for.

Jupiter and its moons, Saturn, The Moon, M13 globular cluster, The Ring and Cat’s Eye…
Jupiter and its moonsComes alive
Jupiter and its moons
Belt detail with room to watch the Galilean moons shift.
SaturnComes alive
Saturn
Rings, the Cassini gap, and Titan in the same field.
The MoonExcellent
The Moon
A high-power tour of rilles, domes and crater chains.
M13 globular clusterExcellent
M13 globular cluster
The core starts to resolve into a spray of suns.
The Ring and Cat’s Eye nebulaeComes alive
The Ring and Cat’s Eye nebulae
Small planetary nebulae take real magnification well.
Excellent
Double stars
Clean, contrasty splits of colorful pairs.
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
10 mmThis one
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
7 mm
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
Any 1.25-inch focuser
Fits essentially every telescope made.
Longer focal length scopes reward it
The higher the scope’s focal length, the more planetary scale you get from this eyepiece.
Pair it
What extends its range
A low-power finder eyepiece (~16mm)
Use the long eyepiece to locate and frame, then drop in this one for detail.
Filter it
What transforms the view
A neutral-density Moon filter
Tames the glare of a bright gibbous Moon at high power so detail returns.
07The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

74/100
74/ 100
Apertura Super Wide Angle 10mm

Judged as a medium-high-power eyepiece for planets, globular cores and small planetary nebulae, it earns its score on a 70-degree field that feels wide open after a kit eyepiece. Tighter eye relief at this focal length is the main thing holding it back. It is honest about being a specialist, not an all-rounder.

Optical quality
72
Immersion
82
Comfort
58
Value
84

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.

Observers who want a medium-high-power eyepiece for planets, globular cores and small…
Buy it if you
✓Observers who want a medium-high-power eyepiece for planets, globular cores and small planetary nebulae.
✓Observers happy to take their glasses off at the eyepiece.
✓Observers who want a comfortably wide field without paying ultra-wide prices.
Look elsewhere if you
!Anyone chasing the absolute widest field, who should look at a 100-degree eyepiece.
!Eyeglass wearers, who will not comfortably reach the full field at this focal length.
!Anyone hoping to frame large nebulae; that is a job for a low-power eyepiece.
09The numbers

Full specifications.

4 measured and stated values
Optical
Focal Length10mm
Apparent Field70°
Comfort & handling
Eye Relief9mm
Fit & build
Barrel Size1.25"
Editor’s Take

Point it at a planet on a steady night and the case makes itself. This is where the Super Wide Angle earns its keep.

— The Skynocular verdict
10Alternatives

For a different goal, start here.

2 alternatives, each mapped to the goal it wins at
Wider, lower power

Apertura Super Wide Angle 15mm

The same optics with more true field, for framing larger objects and finding your way around.

→
Cross-shop

Explore Scientific 68°

A natural alternative at a nearby price point, if you want to compare field and feel before committing.

→