TMB Eyepieces?

[Tube Screamer]

Hi guys,

What's the story with TMB eyepieces?  As some of you whom may have read my previous threads will know, I have finally decided to purchase a Skywatcher Heritage 130p Dob, but also wish to purchase a good, but reasonably priced planetary eyepiece to go with it.

I first of all looked at the Seben 8-24 zoom, but was advised against that for the 130p.  I'm now looking at either a Celestron Omni (4 or 6mm ish) and I've also been reading about TMB eyepieces.

TMB seem to get decent comments and reviews, but there appears to be some controversy of some sort surrounding them?

So I basically wanted to ask, can anyone enlighten me a little about them please, and also tell me the best place to get one from should I decide to purchase one?

Thank you for any advice

Russ

[Donkeiller]

I'd go for BST/Starguiders. I have the 5mm and it is good.

Excellent for the price.

[Tube Screamer]

I'd go for BST/Starguiders. I have the 5mm and it is good.

Excellent for the price.

Thank you for the advice.. can you tell me where is the best place to purchase BST eyepieces so that I can take a look please?

Russ

[Thom]

There doesn't seem to be a lot between the TMBs and BSTs (also known as Paradigms in the US I think). I have a 7 mm TMB which is very good. I had a whole set of BSTs when I did more visual observing and they where excellent.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Astro_Baby]

Well you can get the TMBs at Astronomica ( http://www.astronomica.co.uk/eye-pieces/tmb-planetary-eyepieces ).

The history in a nutshell was that the TMB were designed by Thomas M Back - an optical designer or great charm and intelligence who died very young - by all accounts he was on a par with the renowned Mr Nagler as an optical designer, people who knew Thomas M Back misssed him and some who knew him well never really got over his loss at such a young age..  Before he died his company licensed a factory to put a design into production which has become known by the general term 'TMB planetary' or Burgess Optical Planetary. WARNING - some people get very het up about this topic over whether any eyepiece is truly a TMB and I seem to recall only the 6mm was ever designed by TMB - I may be wrong on this.

I gather there was at one time a lot of hissiness (regrettably all too common in our hobby) about the provenance of various eyepieces which hit the UK a few years back marketed as TMB Planetaries.  Its very hard to know which ones are really as designed by Tom Back and which ones are clones/knock offs/imitations of the design - some come out of the factory which held the licence/rights and some come from cloners.

There is a long thread on here at http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/73818-tmb-planetary-eyepieces-a-warning/ which may give you some heads up on the politics.

How do they perform - I owned a genuine TMB product at one time that came out of Burgess originally (as far as I can tell) for a longer discussion on how to tell genuine from fake have a look at http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/archive/index.php/t-111684.html

I also owned some of the clone/knock offs - performance on all of them was bout the same  - good and with a decent eye relief and relatively wide angle but I sold mine off in favour of orthoscopics.  The reason for me going ortho was down to the scope I use for planetary stuff.  Normally an ortho at 5mm would be unusable for me due to its tight eye relief - but get a scope with a monster F number and hey presto you can use orthos of a longer focal length which happily have a longer eye relief.  When I moved over scopes the TMBs were no longer needed.

Eye relief was good on all of the ones I had and the view was mostly good but contrast seemed a bit lacking to me on the 5mm one but then I compared them against some nice orthos and Pentax XWs. I wouldn't expect a £40 eyepiece to outperfrom an XW and I wouldn't expect many wide angles (especially budget ones) to compare too well to good orthos. For what I paid for mine - all bought 2nd hand I considered them solid enough EPs and for the money ok if not exceptional.  The 6mm was the best of the lot from memory. Remember these are a relatively old design.

Folks on here seem to prefer the BST starguiders - I cant comment never having used one.

An excellent review is on CN of the various options for high quality planetary here http://www.cloudynights.com/page/articles/cat/user-reviews/eyepieces/eyepieces-3mm-13mm/6mm-lunarplanetary-eyepiece-comparison-r1865

Bear in mind with that review that the TMB it playing against the best of the best planetary eyepieces many of which are either incredibly expensive or out of production or both.

Hope thats all of some help.

[Tube Screamer]

You have been most helpful.  Thank you all very much for your advice!  And thank you to Astro Baby for taking the time to post that very detailed response.. it is very much appreciated!

Russ