John

I am hoping I am where you want to be, a half dozen decent nights should tell me if i am there.

(Let you know in 2017 then  )

I'm sure you will do it Steve

Trouble is, I like eyepieces too much - they sort of call to me from the classifieds

I did have three but sold a load of very lovely Delos, Radian and Pentax eps to raise some cash, in part for the Vixen. The Leica was compensation for them [emoji6].

I do miss them sometimes and will replace at some point down the line.

Sounds sensible Stu. I ought to be more diciplined.

I am in the process of doing a new case, i bought a larger box, got the foam, i had planned to get all my EP`s in the one case but looks like i will have to use the new one for 1.25, and the old one for my humble 2" set, should get it done tomorrow

I've currently got 3 cases

Each year I resolve to get down to 5 or so eyepieces that meet all my needs but I'm weak when bargains come up

You can get a lot of orthos in a case can't you ?

Very nice selection Dude

...One of the thing you need to take into consideration was back in the late 70's and early 80's there was no real alternative.  You either purchased a celestron, vixen or had someone like superscopes make a scope to your own specification, all of which were outside the realms of a christmas pressy for the kids.  I later purchased a Vixen 102 non fluorite and had the battery driven RA axis - cost in 1986 - £1200.  In todays money that's like spending £4K on an LX10 or SW Esprit.  At the time the 11TR retailed for around the £250 - £350 mark if I recall  (given it was some time ago )

Thats pretty much how I found things back then Malcolm. My first scope was a Tasco 11TR 60mm F/13.3 alt-azimuth mounted refractor purchased used for £45 and housed in a nice wooden case. It dated from the 1960's. My 2nd scope was an Astro Systems (Luton) 6" F/6 newtonian which I purchased new as a tube and built my own dobsonian-type mount for. I really pushed the boat out for my 3rd scope and bought a used Vixen SP102M with the original SkySensor GOTO controller for around £650.

We have so much more choice available today and the prices are relatively less too I reckon

Hi Vlad and welcome to the Stargazers Lounge

You have some very fine eyepieces there and some more excellent ones on the way as well !

My 1st scope was a 1960's Tasco 60mm refractor and I still have it. It's all metal and the optics are pretty good. The mount, tripod and stock eyepieces were not so good though and let these scopes down unfortunately. Put it on a better mount and stick a plossl or an orthoscopic eyepiece in the diagonal and it will perform to the limits of it's aperture.

I see they were listing 525x as a potential magnification with the 60mm !

I agree with Lowjiber. While the light pollution can't be overcome without observing from somewhere else, you can use a little more magnification to darken the background "glow" which will help with deep sky viewing. I have some light pollution where I observe and consequently don't find my 31mm eyepiece as good as my 21mm or 13mm for viewing the deep sky. To complement the additional magnification, wide or ultra wide eyepieces can still show a generous field of view.

So there may be a role that wider angle eyepieces could play in helping you make the best of your observing circumstances.

My 12" dob has curved vanes. I don't get any diffraction spikes. The diffraction is still there but it's evenly distributed across the FoV. Whether the sum total of diffraction is greater, the same or less than conventional vanes I don't know as I've not compared it directly to a conventional 12" but I'm very pleased with it's overall performance particularly on lunar and planetary detail

Superb

I can see the Zeiss ZAO's and what I think are some Brandon's along the bottom row ?. Now there's an eyepiece that stirs up the emotions on the Cloudynights forums !

Thats a superb set Gavster

Mixing the XW's with Delos is great as the two eyepiece types are very similiar I feel.

When you say "main collection" do you mean that you have another set ?

Hi Jimmy,

Your eyepiece set will work quite nicely with your 900mm focal length scope. They will give you a range of magnifications from 120x down to 36x. Your 2x barlow lens used with the 7.5mm eyepiece gives you 240x which is probably too much power much of the time although the barlow might provide a more useful power (say around 150x - 180x) used with the next shortest focal length eyepiece in the set.

So you are pretty well set for now I think

Interesting conclusion (SLVs being on a par with TV Plossls). I wonder if they would do well in a Quark (not that eye relief is an issue at the focal lengths used in a Quark).

It depends how well the Quark will play with a more complex opical design. The SLV's have 7 elements in 4 groups. If you prefer a neutral tone eyepiece, you could argue that the SLV's are slightly better than the TV plossls as they produce views very similar to the Baader GO's. Very well controlled flare and light scatter too, considering the number of elements.

Thanks for the feedback folks

I've been toying with the idea of getting the 5mm. The lack of fov may be a worthwhile trade off for good performance and comfortable ER. As Spaceboy has said, it's good for the rest of us that you take the time to review and write up your reports. Must be very time consuming!

I feel lucky to be loaned these nice things by FLO so writing up a report is no trouble. Getting enough starlight through them to form some opinions sometimes is though !

It was spot on tonight, unfortunately with cloud cover spreading over things within 15 mins of when predicted.

Mind you I got 90 mins under great skies which I might have missed out on otherwise.

Just spotted a 25mm Hutech ortho discounted at FLO, but I do not think I really have a case for another EP in that range at the moment, i.e case as in reason (or excuse, as the missus would say ), not case as in EP case

I've got an AH 25mm ortho at the moment. Optically great but the long eye relief actually works against it in this instance as the eye lens is not recessed enough so you have to hover off the top of the eyepiece which, for me at least, is not a great way to do things. I wish they had recessed the eye lens around 8mm like the BGO 18mm does

I find I need to be in the right "mood" to enjoy using orthos. Sometimes I find them just the thing, other times I'll use a more complex design with more eye relief and field width. It's good to have options if you can

FWIW the Vixen SLV's and the Pentax XW's are the closest I've seen to rivaling Baader GO / Astro Hutech performance with more comfort. The Vixen SLV 6mm in particular showed Jupiter and Saturn just as well in every way as the Baader 6mm GO. It's not a particualy expensive eyepiece either.

.......This thread is a bit long to search back through, isn't it!! :-)

I think it might be one of the longest running on the forum. I've posted in it a number of times myself as my collection has changed

How close your and my taste in equipment is Stu. We'd better compare notes at SGL10 I reckon

Nearly.... :-)

I have deliberately missed the 4mm as the eye relief just gets too tight for me below the 5mm. Plus my case is full ;-)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think there is a 4mm BGO Stu. Fujiyama does one though. Great optically but the eye lens and eye relief has got very, very small at 4mm.

Nice set

Do you use 2" EP's at all or have you settled on all 1.25" ?

Apologies if you have posted elsewhere in this thread and I ought to know this !

Well thought through set now Shane - I'll bet you are very content with it

I've added a few TV plossls to my collection recently. Very nice

...... The green letters on the 26 and 7.4 mm are high on the barrel and get covered by the rubber eye guards.

I think thats because your 26 and 7.4 are from the first production run. The later run of the "smooth sides" moved the lettering to the bottom of the barrel so it could be read with the eye guars in place.

Nice eyepieces

Thats a nice and versitile set Ruud

Shane: Some of the winged eyecups there look like the ones that Tele Vue supplied with the early "smooth side" plossls. The work well but can't be folded down if you don't want the "wing" up.

The longest in the Baader Classic range is a Plossl. I find this rather irksome as the only Orthoscopic EPs I would consider have focal length 24mm or longer (eye relief, and all that jazz)

Takahashi now have a 32mm ortho:

http://www.apm-telescopes.de/de/takahashi-abbe-ortho-okular-32-mm.html

Pentax and Tele Vue. It really does not get much better than that IMHO

Very nice

I like the Type 4 Nagler eyepieces, I used to have the 22mm and loved it.