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Finest and best eyepieces you ever used!


denis0007dl

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Let me know whar are finest eyepieces you ever used?

I will put my short list, and rank from best to less better, and all these eyepieces I had, and still have some:

1. Carl Zeiss 25mm orthos (E-Pl, W (West Germany), S-PL, and W-PL models), and Leica HC Plan 10x/25 Made in Germany model

2. ZAO IIs

3. Fujiyama orthos and simillar

4. Siebert monocentrics, then TMB monocentrics, then Zeiss monocentrics(but not so good as here mentioned monos)

5. Pentax XW series

6. Leica ASPH Zoom

7. TeleVue Deloses, Ethos, Panoptics, Naglers, Plossls

8. Astro-Physics SPL series

9. Brandons

10. All others not worth to mention :)

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Nice list Dennis.

How do you rate these that I have in my binoviewer. Don't know so much about them.7a62d8f3fa3a703d148fe410f0db8c56.jpg608545f73661cb140b4db9053c878cac.jpg

Stu

Thank you :)

These are on place NO.1, very nice!

.....BUT, all these mentioned Zeiss eyepieces exists like China clones(produced in China), with approx 95% same phisicall design, and not so good optics and performances like real Zeiss!

Even many sellers worldwide, and even well known sellers selling sometimes China clones deliberately, or non deliberately.

Not so many people know this, and very few experts could tell which are which, but only when you have them in hands!

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The first quality eyepiece I bought was the Baader Zoom mklll with the 2.25 Barlow and I still rate this eyepiece highly and along with the Panview 38mm is my most used eyepiece.

I later added Delos, Nagler and Meade 5000 uwan eyepieces to the collection and these are excellent but if I had to slim down my collection then I would keep the Zoom and Panaview.

Avtar

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Thinking about it, my finest views over the years have come from eyepieces that are quite ordinary really, probably in your "others not worth to mention" category. What made the views memorable was either especially good seeing conditions, an unusual or new target or having some great company when observing, or a combination of these things :smiley: 

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Denis, how would the Docter 12.5mm UW (latest version) compare to those other widefields on your list? What scopes were the listed EP's used in for comparison?

Docter is one of top line I did not test so far!

I beleive it is between my 4th and 6th place!

It is too complex design however, too much glasses, too much air-to-glass surfaces, and all knows what this causes, no matter how good are coatings, polished glass surfaces, material...but still great I beleive!

I test all in 10" f/5 newt with and withour Paracorr II  :smiley:

Yeah, fast enough to see/tell differences....

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Docter is one of top line I did not test so far!

I beleive it is between my 4th and 6th place!

It is too complex design however, too much glasses, too much air-to-glass surfaces, and all knows what this causes, no matter how good are coatings, polished glass surfaces, material...but still great I beleive!

I test all in 10" f/5 newt with and withour Paracorr II  :smiley:

Yeah, fast enough to see/tell differences....

Thanks Denis, I heard this EP is good and I may try one. What is interesting is that on faint galaxies my 10mm Ethos outperforms other less complex designs, I have a new ortho that may give it a go however, not expensive but it might work well.  So far the closest match is the 18mmBCO 2x barlowed, but the exit pupil is a hair small in my dob.

My 12.5mm Tak ortho, is a great high transmission EP, but for whatever reason it lacks contrast on faint stuff... contrast is a strange beast!

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Thank you :)

These are on place NO.1, very nice!

.....BUT, all these mentioned Zeiss eyepieces exists like China clones(produced in China), with approx 95% same phisicall design, and not so good optics and performances like real Zeiss!

Even many sellers worldwide, and even well known sellers selling sometimes China clones deliberately, or non deliberately.

Not so many people know this, and very few experts could tell which are which, but only when you have them in hands!

Many people refer to this as 'branding' equipment. Such as a 8mm - 24mm Zoom Eyepiece: The same eyepiece may be marketed under Meade, Orion, Vixen, and other brand names. It's a common practice that many of us are aware of. Sometimes this can work out well for the would-be buyer as one can simply see who has the lowest price. Other times it can be a problem as a bad product will start showing up all over the map.

So it goes...

Clear Skies,

Dave

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I have quite a few that rank within your list however, considering my skies, I have no doubt many folk on here have had better views with stock scope eyepieces. So many variables, it almost makes owning great eyepieces not that big a deal really, unless you have the skies to utilise them. Kinda makes me feel a bit foolish :)

I especially like John's reply.

Thanks for the post, Denis. I've enjoyed reading the replies.

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Thanks Denis, I heard this EP is good and I may try one. What is interesting is that on faint galaxies my 10mm Ethos outperforms other less complex designs, I have a new ortho that may give it a go however, not expensive but it might work well.  So far the closest match is the 18mmBCO 2x barlowed, but the exit pupil is a hair small in my dob.

My 12.5mm Tak ortho, is a great high transmission EP, but for whatever reason it lacks contrast on faint stuff... contrast is a strange beast!

Jerry,

I do not find this funny at all, as you know I have done hundreds of hours testing eyepieces and the minute difference in transmission between top eyepieces I would say is impossible to call. You may well find a 10mm Ethos will show the best performance over any on the list, the trick is that you have to use all of these under the same seeing condition on the same nights, I do my tests on at least two nights and many times 3-4 nights. It may well be the case that any of the excellent Zeiss ZO ll's will out gun any of the Ethos range though it may be that you need to wait a year to actually see any difference as the atmosphere really messes things up.

Take last night I knew it was going to hard work when I saw Venus was scintillating :mad: .

I think John  and Joves allure to it well, best nights are all about seeing not fabulous glass but that too is nice to have in the case.

Alan

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It's nice that great EP's can be had at reasonable cost ie KK orthos, BCO, SLV etc and each flavor shows things a bit differently IMHO. Some EP's do show better on some objects vs other ones. When I talk of faint galaxies though, some will just disappear in some EP's... I find now that I have to use the 10E to actually see them at all, not just optimize the views of them and there are indications that other oculars may be a bit better, which remains to be seen.

A bigger scope would help see fainter, but then again it will have a threshold too...

I'm not sure if I believe in optical perfection, I do believe that the best optical compromise can be approached to give some excellent viewing. Obviously this happens under good skies.

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Let me know whar are finest eyepieces you ever used?

I will put my short list, and rank from best to less better, and all these eyepieces I had, and still have some:

1. Carl Zeiss 25mm orthos (E-Pl, W (West Germany), S-PL, and W-PL models), and Leica HC Plan 10x/25 Made in Germany model

2. ZAO IIs

3. Fujiyama orthos and simillar

4. Siebert monocentrics, then TMB monocentrics, then Zeiss monocentrics(but not so good as here mentioned monos)

5. Pentax XW series

6. Leica ASPH Zoom

7. TeleVue Deloses, Ethos, Panoptics, Naglers, Plossls

8. Astro-Physics SPL series

9. Brandons

10. All others not worth to mention :)

Oh, I forget RKE 28mm eyepieces, they are special, with incredible floating effect, and very clean image, so, let it be some special place for them, not ranked on list, but worth to mention  :smiley:

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Thinking about it, my finest views over the years have come from eyepieces that are quite ordinary really, probably in your "others not worth to mention" category. What made the views memorable was either especially good seeing conditions, an unusual or new target or having some great company when observing, or a combination of these things :smiley:

Agreed. Some of my best views of the planets were had with an old style Celestron Ultima 7.5mm (also sold as the Orion Ultrascopic and Anteres Elite “Super Plossls”).

In fact, I liked it so much that I've just bought another.

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Yeesh!

The number of EPs I've owned, borrowed, viewed with!

After going through virtually al the eyepieces on the OP's list, I've settled on the following for both my planetary (f15 8") and wide-field (f6.5 4")

41mm Panoptic - in either scope its a winner. Flat field, "contrasty", easy viewing EP. A great "finder" eyepiece in the f15.

24mm Brandon - I plan to buy more Brandons. The 24s go with anything. IMHO, they are every bit a match for the Zeiss Abbes at 1/4 the price.

19mm Panoptic - x 2. I use these in my WO binoviewers, my spotting scope, just about anything that will take a 1.25" EP. Splendid!

16mm Nagler - Perfect 'planetary' in the f15. And a perfect mid-range wide-field in the f6.5. Same FoV as the 19mm Pans but closer.

13mm Nagler - First "proper" EP I bought. Not the sharpest in this fl, but it has sentimental value.

Takahashi LE 7.5mm - near useless in the f15 if there is the slightest breeze, but a stunner on good nights in the f6.5 .

TV 2x Powermate - for REALLY good nights.

As I.ve said, this collection has been 10 years in the making and while its quite "me specific" I don't think anyone would be ill served by any of these. The only eyepieces I regret parting with were a couple of Pentax XWs. I could not for the life of me get a comfortable viewing position with them. I found them very demanding of eye position and I always wound up pulling them after 5 minutes.

A

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