John

I guess the most important factor in how they are arranged should be how easy and safely that can be picked up and put back under observing conditions, in the dark and possibly with gloved hands.

If you don't remove the cut foam cubes but just separate them in the block sizes you need and press the eyepiece down into the blocks, when you want to change eyepieces the block can be pulled back into place and re-sized for the replacement eyepiece. That way the foam stays in much better shape. Here are my two cases. The larger one has been subjected to lots of changes over the past 3 years and still seems to be in good shape. Worrying gap at the top right though - sort of Pentax XW 10mm shaped

Very nice Rik Have to agree Mike. Rik was using them way before I "discovered" them but now I'm considering the 10mm to go with the 7, 5 and 3.5mm that I've picked up over the past 18 months. The 30mm and 40mm XW's are out of production now I believe and have become rather sought after. I saw a "wanted" advert not long ago that was offering $600 for a mint condition used one !

Very nice Mike - the "end on" approach fits more into a case Amazing how it mounts up though isn't it ?. My rough calculation is that the last 3 eyepiece collections posted in this thread would equate to around £7,500 in total on the used market and probably around £10K to replace with new I'm just as guilty though but it's my only hobby so

Feng Shui applied to eyepiece case layout

Very Nice Stu I'm down to two cases as well now. Maybe the compulsion is under control I think we have probably both reached the point where any further changes are driven more by curiosity than need. You can remind me I posted that if and when I buy another eyepiece !

Nice case full Stu Using a Giro-type mount does make you focus on scope balance that bit more.

I have less at the long FL end but a crowded short FL section: 31 - 21 - 13 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3.5 - 3

Does your TAL 125 Apolar bring 2" eyepieces to focus OK Wim ? The one I had to test did not have enough inwards focuser travel so I had to stay with 1.25" accessories.

Very nice selection now Shane. All bases covered I'd say I keep saying "thats it" with mine too but somehow something else slips in now and again. I've fallen for the Pentax XW's lately and I just need the 10mm to complete my short FL line of those. I could do with a short set of orthos again too I suppose ...... oh dear it never stops !

Mark, The bodies of the 3 SLV's that I have are all 50mm in diameter. The twist up eye cups are 48mm outside diameter. Hope that helps What we need is a little piece of software which lets us input the nose width and eyepiece type proposed and then calculates the interpupillary range that would be available. I think "Binoconksim" would be a good name for this application

Yes, definitely in my opinion. I've owned a couple of sets of TV plossls so I know and respect them well.

Thanks Mark (and to everybody else for the encouraging comments) I did have them at SGL9 and we did have a quick peek through one. Everything was a "quick peek" at SGL9 though ! On interesting little snippet I've picked up elsewhere is that there has apparently been a recent big price hike in low dispersion glasses such as Lanthanum when it's imported to Japan. It's cost has remained more reasonable in China though which might be a reason why the SLV's are made there now rather than Japan where the earlier LV and NLV ranges were manufactured. I guess labour and other production costs in China are lower as well so there are probably a number of factors at work here. Quality does not appear to have suffered though as I had the opportunity to compare the 6mm SLV with a Japanese made 6mm LV recently and the SLV was as good on all counts and rather better in terms of FoV and light transmission, in my view. The "click stop" eye cup adjustment is an improvement over the rather stiff roll down eye cup of the LV too

I used to have the 7.5mm "black top" made by Vixen but branded Celestron. It was a nice plossl but when I came to part with it I had a job to shift it even at £20. Of course the smart buyers pick up good things for a song when they fall out of fashion a bit I reckon the days of dirt cheap Circle-T orthos are gone now as well - I bought 5 mint ones for £80 a few years back but they seem to command more like £30+ each these days for clean ones.

Interesting. Those were the 2nd generation ones I think. The 1st gen ones tops were all silver and in 1 piece rather than having the black section on the top. I've no idea if there were any optical differences - probably not. Edit: The "Dude" beat me to it !

Yep - great choices available today

Some have: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/173218-explore-scientific-82-degree-vs-televue-nagler-at-f5/

With all these excellent and lower cost alternatives available it makes you wonder why so many folks are prepared to spend their hard earned £'s / $'s / Euros on Tele Vue, Pentax, Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, Takahashi etc ?

I believe the 30mm ES 82 is very, very close to Nagler performance too.

The 31mm T5's are expensive Michael but I agree that they are wonderful eyepieces. I get more of a "sense of occasion" when I put my 31mm Nagler in the scope than I do any other eyepiece

Trouble is, I've no idea how big a hand grenade is, never having seen one - it could be just a couple of cm long. Can't we just stick to the traditional tin of baked beans for scale ?

I'll be interested to hear about the TV Wide Fields from the folks who have got them. The 15mm, 19mm and 24mm TV WF's were my first foray into wide field eyepieces and worked very nicely at F/10 like most eyepiece do. The don't compete with Panoptics in faster scopes though. About the same as Hyperions perhaps ? I've been just as guilty on this having had low glass sets, ultra-wide sets and currently a set just for one scope - my 6" F/12 refractor

Nice eyepiece Shane I used to have the 1.25" Wide Fields in 15mm, 19mm and 24mm but I've not tried one of the 2" ones.

We do see things a little differently I reckon "Dude" I used to have a set of the NJ "smoothside" TV Plossls (except the 55mm) and a set of the newer shaped ones, with the rubber eye cups (again less the 55mm). They were both very good ranges but I felt the newer ones had greater light transmission and slightly less light scatter. Still, lets see what Alan makes of them !

I've found TV plossls very good all round eyepieces with high transmission levels. I've read that their "tone" particularly suits some objects such as Jupiter although I've never been particularly aware of this "tone" personally. They do seem to be slightly "warmer" than some eyepieces such as Baader GO's and Pentax XW's so that must be it. Of course it raises the spectre of the really keen eyepiece collector having not only a wide set and a low glass, narrower set but also a Jupiter set, Mars set, Saturn set, Lunar set etc, etc. I see that solar sets are creeping in as well - where will it all end ?