Tele Vue Plossl eyepieces

[pbeville]

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me deciding on which Tele Vue I should buy. 

I already have an Orion Sirius 25MM plossl, but the Tele Vue 25MM has been calling me. Would it be worth the $100? The 25MM provides the perfect light transmission, magnification and eye relief in my Orion XT6 dob. I would really like to have the best eyepiece that I can, and the Tele Vue is within my price range. 

The field of view would be narrower with the Tele Vue (over the Orion) but I think the improvement in other areas would be worth it.

So my question is this, should I buy the 25MM, or buy the 32MM or 20MM? I mainly look at nebulas and clusters, so the 32MM would provide a wider view of the open clusters, but would probably be too low in magnification for nebula. 

Any suggestions or input would be greatly appreciated!

[John]

The Sirius plossls were quite decent quality plossls. The improvements that a Tele Vue version of the 25mm would bring would be subtle at most with your F/8 Orion XT6 (I believe it is an F/8 scope ?).

A 32mm might be worth considering though as a maximum field 1.25" eyepiece.

I do really like Tele Vue plossls and I've owned most of them at one time or another but other good quality plossls are pretty close in performance. With the other eyepieces you own and the ES82 14mm on the way you would have a pretty comprehensive set then.

[Dave In Vermont]

You might do well to consider other EP's than TeleVue if you would like a wider FOV, a range of magnifications, lots eye-relief room, and not broke getting these. The EP's offered by both Baader and Explore Scientific - ES - are excellent with many people feeling no desire to "upgrade" to TV again. Here's a link to each:

http://www.baader-planetarium.com/pdf/hyperion-okulare_englisch.pdf

http://explorescientificusa.com/collections/eyepiece

Both sell at $139. Have plenty of eye-relief. And excellent optics.

Hope this helps.

Clear & Dark Skies,

Dave

[Ruud]

TeleVue Plössls (I have two of them) are mainly so good because they'll also work well on very fast scopes. That's not an advantage for you.

I think that for your $100 you can probably find a good eyepiece with a more generous field of view than a Plössl.

[swamp thing]

How about a 24mm panoptic? This will give the same FOV as the TV 32MM plossl at the power of the 25mm, hence killing two birds with one stone. 

Just a thought

[pbeville]

Thanks everyone, it seems that my money would be better spent on other eyepieces. That's what I was worried about in the first place...

I'll take a look at all your suggestions and let you know what I decide.

[Dave In Vermont]

How about a 24mm panoptic? This will give the same FOV as the TV 32MM plossl at the power of the 25mm, hence killing two birds with one stone. 

Just a thought

I have a 24mm Panoptic by TeleVue. And it does indeed have a 68-degree FOV. But I also have a 24mm Baader Hyperion, which also have a 68-degree FOV. To be perfectly honest here, the TV cost me $300 - as it's listed at $400 and is on "perpetual-sale" at $300. Is it worth $161.00 more than the image available through the Hyperion? Absolutely not. And this is why those of us who have the opportunity to try/buy both TV's and Baader or ES never bother with TeleVue again. Don't misunderstand me please, I firmly admit that TeleVue EP's are the "gold-standard" and have world-class excellent optics. But I personally am one of the people who won't be buying any more of them.

That's my 2 pennies.

Clear & Dark Skies,

Dave

[pbeville]

Yeah the Baader have some great reviews.

The 24MM in my slow dob should provide what I'm looking for: wide views with minimal distortion and good light transmission.

[Dave In Vermont]

If this will be your first time using an EP with a wide field, you may be in for a bit of a shock. I, too, had started out with Orion Sirius Plossl's before I got the wider-field bug. With the Sirius (and other Plossl EP's) I was accustomed to getting my eye right up to the glass almost. Had to clean off the occasional eyelash and a bit of skin oil. Then I tried a 68-degree EP. What I found was that I couldn't take in the entire FOV at once with many of them. It was, as has been remarked by many, like looking out a porthole-window on a spaceship. I needed to distance my eye from the lens and look around the FOV. Took me a bit to become used to this.

I still have several Plossl EP's, including a TV or two. But they get little use. I sold the rest. I was pleased to find out that astronomical equipment maintains a high value on the used-markets.

Clear & Dark Skies,

Dave

[alan potts]

Dave,

By Baader eyepieces I guess you mean Hyperion, have you put one in your F4 scope?  Fine at F10 I agree, I could see all sorts going on at F 5.26, not for me. If however you mean BGO's then that is a different story.

Like yourself people do get other scopes

As for the OP, if you consider something wider without paying TV prices what about a Meade 24mm SWA or a Maxvision which is the same thing if you can find one. EXsC are also very good and will not empty your pockets as much.

Alan.

[swamp thing]

I have a 24mm Panoptic by TeleVue. And it does indeed have a 68-degree FOV. But I also have a 24mm Baader Hyperion, which also have a 68-degree FOV. To be perfectly honest here, the TV cost me $300 - as it's listed at $400 and is on "perpetual-sale" at $300. Is it worth $161.00 more than the image available through the Hyperion? Absolutely not. And this is why those of us who have the opportunity to try/buy both TV's and Baader or ES never bother with TeleVue again. Don't misunderstand me please, I firmly admit that TeleVue EP's are the "gold-standard" and have world-class excellent optics. But I personally am one of the people who won't be buying any more of them. That's my 2 pennies. Clear & Dark Skies, Dave

As Alan said above, the Baader Hyperions are fine in slow scopes. In my fast dobs they don't cut it at all. The edges become pretty poor at this speed. This is why I recommend TV as they work well in any scope. Yes they're expensive but you only buy once. As for ES, no thanks I tried their 30mm 82 deg eyepiece. I'm sorry, but it's not as close to the 31mm Nagler as a lot of it's owners say. I'd pick the 28mmm UWAN or Nirvana over it any day. Now I don't know if I tried a bad example but I'll say this, light transmission through it was woeful.

[Dave In Vermont]

Admittedly I have not had the opportunity to put such in my F/4 yet. That just came back from being re-mirrored and is awaiting collimation. But I'll defer to your knowledge on this. Most people I have talked with have not raised such issues with me - until now. So I'll find out after a new laser-collimator crawls in and I finish tuning a LXD55 mount.

TeleVue's are certainly exceptionally good EP's. But in many scopes they just aren't worth the expense IMHO. And the opinions of many others. Including one gentleman I am friends with who does have a relatively fast Dob - somewhere around F5.5 or F/6 -  who had tried, and owned, many TeleVue's. He sold them. To each their own.

Clear & Dark Skies,

Dave

[Moonshane]

In answer to your question I think the 32mm would be the better option for the reasons above. It does have quite long eye relief though and I bought an eyecup extender which works very well. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/223548-what-to-get-the-person-who-has-everything-tv-eyeguard-extender/

In general terms TV plossls are very well constructed and possibly my most used eyepieces. I have 32, 25, 20, 15 and 11mm versions. I also have a 26mm, 16mm and 12mm Nagler eyepieces but prefer the simpler view on solar system objects and double stars. As with most of my kit I tend to buy used. The 24mm Panoptic is a further step up but only in terms of field of view. The differences between any optical systems do not generally reflect the cost differential but in my opinion are worth the extra but YMMV. Think binoculars. You can get a decent pair for £100. To really improve on that you'd need to spend maybe £250. To very slightly improve on those you'd need to spend £750+

[alan potts]

Dave,

As you say each to there own but in a SC at F10 I 100% agree with you even though I would have spent the extra but then again I need my head looking at.

Alan

[JamesF]

I've read reviews where people have said "eyepiece X performs well enough that I can't really tell  the difference between it and a TV eyepiece", or "for the difference in performance between eyepiece X and this TV eyepiece I can't justify the difference in cost".  I think that's a completely sensible point of view in both instances.  In my case I have started picking up occasional used TV eyepieces because I found that my f/4.7 dob was exceptionally hard on eyepieces that worked fine in pretty much all my other OTAs to the point where they were really not pleasant to use (the only exceptions being my BGOs, but the dob is really a wide field scope and the BGOs are not exactly wide field eyepieces  If the dob had been a bit slower I'd almost certainly have looked elsewhere.

James

[Dave In Vermont]

Well just to toss a monkey-wrench in here: I use orthoscopic EP's for planetary work. In everything from my F/5 ST80 on up to my F/10 SCT's. I also use Hyperion's in my ST80 with good results, as well as having a Baader Fringe-Killer filter mounted in the diagonal. Now I'm going to add a Rainbow Optics spectrographic grating-cell into the whole line-up.....

Please send aid if there is a nuclear explosion in Vermont.

Clear & Dark Skies,

Dave

[JamesF]

Well just to toss a monkey-wrench in here: I use orthoscopic EP's for planetary work. In everything from my F/5 ST80 on up to my F/10 SCT's. I also use Hyperion's in my ST80 with good results, as well as having a Baader Fringe-Killer filter mounted in the diagonal. Now I'm going to add a Rainbow Optics spectrographic grating-cell into the whole line-up.....

I also regularly use my Baader Orthos for planetary, Dave.  They're lovely eyepieces to use and seem to work everywhere.

James

[alan potts]

I am of good mind to buy a ticket to come and see that even if it is the end of the world.      Sorry OP we have gone away from Tele-Vue Plossl eyepieces somewhat.

For what it is worth I have got the 11mm but it is in Sofia as I have not been to collect it yet. I am going to review it against the 12.5mm Hutech Optic ortho but first I need a planet that is not setting so early or I have to get the chainsaw out. I get about 30 minutes now and Saturn is in the leaves of one of the walnuts.

Shouldn't be too long before Jupiter makes another appearence in the evening sky.

Alan

[Moonshane]

the 11mm TV plossl is one of those rare eyepieces that has hit a sweet spot in every scope I have owned.

[alan potts]

Shane,

I always believe dispite having many wide and mega wide eyepieces some things like, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus etc are better framed in a 50 degree or even less FOV. Delos's are fabulous eyepieces but when I  really want to get down to studying say Jupiter I tend to go for a BGO or maybe now an 11mm Plossl, it was bought with the 12 inch in mind for Saturn and the Moon really, I may get the 8mm and 15mm next.

Alan

[John]

I've recently aquired a 20mm TV plossl to be my "Horsehead" eyepiece used with a Lumicon H-Beta filter. I've tried it out a couple of times for general observing recently and it works very well. I'd forgotten just how small and light a 20mm eyepiece could be. For around £40 used I'm very pleased with it

[Moonshane]

I have the same John for the same reasons. It also acts as my main solar eyepiece in the 80mm Vixen giving 45x and as much detail as you can shake a stick at.

[Pete Presland]

i have a range of TV Plossl's from 32mm down to 8mm they are excellent in my C9.25 (f10) and 200 PDS (F5) simply the best eyepieces i have owned. i owned a few Baader Hyperions a while back and to be honest at F5 they were abysmal, how an eyepiece can look so good but perform so poorly.

[pbeville]

Hmmm, well how do the ES 68's handle faster scopes? I can easily see myself upgrading in the not-so-far future, so I don't want to waste money now on an eyepiece that won't work wel with a future telescope...

[John]

I think the ES 68's are pretty good in faster scopes. It's the older range of 70's that struggled a bit.