The Celestron Telescope Eyepiece - Filter Accessory Kit (#94303) carries a 2009 MSRP of $165.99 and it can be purchased online for as little as $128.99 (from Optics Planet). The Kit includes five Celestron 1.25" Plossl oculars for what about a decade ago used to be the price of a single Celestron Plossl. This is an inexpensive way for the person buying their first telescope to get started with an array of oculars. The 24-26mm Plossl ocular supplied with most decent astronomical telescopes these days is quite useful, but both shorter and longer focal length oculars are necessary if you plan to do much observing.

The Celestron Telescope Eyepiece - Filter Accessory Kit includes oculars of 4mm, 6mm, 9mm, 15mm and 32mm focal length. These are standard four element, fully multi-coated Plossl oculars. The apparent field of view (AFOV) of these oculars is 52-degrees, except for the 32mm, which has a 44-degree AFOV. They are not Celestron's premium grade Omni Plossls (the 32mm Omni has a 52 degree AFOV, for instance), but they work well. Also included is a 2x Barlow lens. These eyepieces are made in Red China.

The remainder of the kit consists of a Moon (neutral density) filter and a set of six colored filters for planetary viewing (Kodak Wratten #12, #21, #25, #56, #58A and #80A. The lower (mounting) barrels of all Celestron 1.25" oculars (and most other brands) are threaded to accept these filters.

The whole kit is packaged in a fitted, foam lined, aluminum carrying case. The case even has room for additional accessories, including the 25mm ocular that probably came with your telescope. This protects and organizes your accessories and makes the set handy to use in the field.

The primary drawback to the Celestron Eyepiece Kit is the relative shortage of long focal length oculars for deep sky use. Only the 32mm qualifies as such and its AFOV is restricted.

The preponderance of very high magnification, short focal lengths is a little hard to understand. Plossl oculars shorter than about 15mm become increasingly difficult to look through due to their tiny field lens. Consequently, the 4mm and 6mm oculars are basically useless for most purposes, especially with small aperture beginner telescopes, while the 9mm is marginal. However, the 15mm and 32mm oculars will probably get plenty of use. I feel that 40mm, 32mm, 20mm, 15mm, 12.5mm and 10mm Omni Plossl oculars, along with with a moon filter, would have made for a much more versatile kit. Celestron could skip the Barlow lens and colored filters to reduce costs. Such a kit would cost considerably more, but it would be worth it. (Note that Meade does offer such an eyepiece kit.)

Even better would be the option of a "premium eyepiece kit" with 40mm and 32mm Omni Plossl oculars, plus 18mm, 12.5mm, 10mm and 8mm X-Cel oculars. The Celestron X-Cel eyepieces all have a 20mm eye relief, which makes viewing with short focal length oculars much more enjoyable.

I have used colored filters for their recommended viewing purposes and owned filter sets similar to those included in this Kit, but never found them to be very useful. Some observers, however, do like them. Remember that all filters are subtractive; that is they reduce part of the visible light spectrum, so less light reaches your eye. However, the Moon is usually too bright for comfort when viewed through a telescope, so a neutral density filter (ND) that reduces the total amount of light reaching your eye without altering the color spectrum is definitely required. This filter alone makes the whole filter set worthwhile and it should get plenty of use.

Everyone seems to want a 2x Barlow lens, so Celestron included one. In this case it is a simple, two element (achromatic) design that will induce chromatic aberration when bright objects are viewed. Celestron claims that the supplied Barlow "Complements the Plossl eyepieces and gives you a total of 10 power combinations . . . high grade glass optics with fully multi-coated lenses." This is undoubtedly true. However, the reality is that it is almost always better to have an ocular of the appropriate focal length, rather than a longer focal length ocular and a Barlow. (A 15mm ocular, for example, will provide better images than a 30mm ocular and a 2x Barlow of the same quality.) This kit already includes three short focal length oculars, so I think most purchasers will find limited use for the Barlow lens.

The supplied case is great and keeps everything organized in the field. The 32mm and 15mm oculars are useful and the 9mm also performs well, except for its restricted eye relief. Ditto the Moon Filter, so the set is worth its modest price.