TheLookingGlass

On 10/12/2022 at 10:23, johnturley said:

Would be interested to know how it compares with the Baader Hyperion Aspheric 31 mm, which has a similar APFOV.

John 

It will be miles better than the 31mm Hyperion, or even the 36mm Hyperion. This thread is good, but it is getting wrecked by too much Bru-ha-ha.

Check out this review on the APM XWA eyepieces.

https://astromart.com/reviews/eyepieces/show/apm-xwa-100-degree-eyepieces

18 hours ago, Stephenstargazer said:

I could not resist this one from Giotto.

I have that same blower bulb. Works a charm!

I use hand warmers, (the kind you shake to activate), with an elastic band on my eyepieces and 50mm RACI finder when it is dewy out.

Works great!

Outstanding !!!

On 12/10/2022 at 12:11, rwilkey said:

The Baader Hyperions do not work well in f/5 scopes, the view gets fuzzy towards the outer 10%.

True for most, but I use the 21mm with a 14mm fine tuning ring and with the FTR installed it eliminates EOFB, some astig and the field is now fully illuminated.

This is with a 10" Orion Intelliscope -- F/4.7, and the end result is very acceptable. The 17mm is pretty good as well. The rest are, meh.

Cheers!

1 minute ago, Mr Spock said:

This is a four year old thread and 25585 is no longer a member 

🤣

On 20/11/2017 at 09:12, 25585 said:

Not a LVW, but hopefully as good. 

Eye cup does screw up but is loose. It comes off completely leaving a bare metal red rim. 

Screwed down or removed made no difference to eye relief. I could see almost the FOV, less than on my LVWs. The eye lens is slightly concave but near top so not very recessed. 

This 2 incher is heavy, more than my 30mm NVLW, not much difference between this Orion & a 42mm LVW. 

Good feel to the construction and broad rubber grip ring. 

This 20 does not replace the LVW 22mm I want, but hopefully will dampen my yearning. Onto bigger things!

Just wondering , where is your review of this eyepiece?

58 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

I can see a couple reasons:

1) vignetting.  Not all filters have the same clear aperture.  If the aperture of the filter is smaller than the field stop in the eyepiece, due to its proximity to the field stop, some hard vignetting can take place.

Since the head moves, this vignetting would float around the edges.

This problem can be mitigated by sitting to view and using eyepieces with a bit less eye relief.

2) the strongly reduced light throughput in the eyepiece+filter combination might make acquiring and holding an exit pupil a bit harder.  I see this with eyepieces that have large exit pupils when I use

an H-ß filter, for instance.  The exit pupil is so little brighter than the area outside the field, finding and holding the exit pupil can become, as some say, "finicky".

This problem is mitigated by being fully dark adapted and being under dark skies.

 

As to the 30mm APM discussed above, it works very well with filters, but I put the filter on the front of the Paracorr, not the eyepiece, so the filter is very far away from the focal plane and any vignetting that occurs (I'm sure there is some)

is so far out of focus as to be insignificant in a visual sense.

 I notice when viewing through the eyepieces without a filter in place that when I move my head slightly up, down, left and right that small "dark areas" appear. It is very subtle, but it is noticeable. Some other eyepieces I have owned in the past never exhibited this. When I add the filter to the threads on the bottom, this phenomenon is even more noticeable, and the exit pupil gets a bit harder to hold. If I put a hood over my head, or cup my hands around both eyes, it goes away.

I have put the filter on the bottom of the coma corrector and just like you said, it goes away.

23 minutes ago, Louis D said:

It might be possible to limit image forming lens growth if a focal reducer first stage as with the 30mm APM UFF were employed in the design.  In the diagram below, the first group acts as a focal reducer while I believe the second group acts as a traditional Smyth lens.  The upper 3 groups are the traditional Panoptic style image forming section where rays are first spread out and then reconverged.

Excellent eyepiece. I did own two of those at different times. Really nice correction. Only thing weird was that the field went funky when using with filters. Some eyepieces with long eye relief show this, while the Morpheus work great with filters. I found the same with the 22mm Ultima LX. Great eyepiece with insanely good edge correction, but once a filter is used, it was hard to get a good view.

I wonder why this happens with certain eyepieces? Strange.

14 hours ago, LDW1 said:

I have the 17.5, 12.5, 9, 6.5mm Morpheus eps they are probably the best eps that I personally have ever owned. They are excellent performers in every respect, I wish they would make one in a 25 & 30mm range but I use the 31, 21mm Hyperions which are no slouch as well. That photo was taken at my remote camp in northern Ontario, Bortle 1, SQM-L 22.0 / 22.05 on clear nites right out the camp door. It is a single 13 second shot taken with my DSLR. We sold it after 50 yrs last Sept. and miss it every night. Now I view in my Bortle 4/5 backyard but Bortle 1-2 skies are less than 20-30 minutes away for my use.

Nice!

it would have been cool if they did make a 2" Morpheus, but I think the glass would be huge in order for them to make one, if I am not mistaken? Still would be nice though. Just over a year ago, I switched from the Morpheus to the APM 100's. I bought the 20mm, 13mm, 9mm and 7mm APM's. Eye relief is really good on them considering that they are 100 deg eyepieces, but cannot be used with glasses, and there are times when I need glasses when reading Stellarium on my cell phone to look for things and the glasses on, glasses off gets tedious. The views in the APM 100's are truly majestic, but the Morpheus provides me with almost 80 degrees and long eye relief and I am able to use glasses with them if I need to at times. They are also much lighter in weight. I can also get away with using them without a  coma corrector, and the views are still acceptable. The 20mm APM 100 and the 13mm APM 100 need a coma corrector, (in my 10" F/5), to be at their full potential, while the Baader Morpheus can be used w/o one. (The 12.5mm really does benefit from a coma corrector out of the three I own, but still acceptable without one).

I tried a 31mm Hyperion about 8 years ago. I compared it to a 32mm Orion Q70 and it was no better correction-wise. The astigmatism was pretty bad in the 31mm Hyperion, so I shipped it right back to the store, lol.  The brown truck goes both ways, lol. Some are more sensitive than others as far as astigmatism goes. It depends on the end user. 

That's excellent about your Bortle 1 skies!  I've only ever seen that years ago when I was in Schreiber, Ontario when I was touring in a band, lol. I think I was about 19 LOL. I can only drive to Bortle 4 skies sometimes. Only thing good from my yard is planets or the moon.

Cheerz!

My faves are the Baader Morpheus. Nice long eye relief, can use with glasses if needed. I find with glasses that the 6.5mm Morpheus is better with the eye guard removed. I just use cheap readers, so scratching them is of no concern, lol.

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

You may want to stick with the hair bands.  Rubber O-rings have a rather strong chemical odor that never seems to go away.

I've got dozens of O-rings. No smell from mine. I've been using O-rings to parfocalize my eyepieces for many years without any odours or problems.

15 hours ago, LDW1 said:

You are correct but I didn't imply that you / anyone had to use a large number of eps on any one observing session, just a great option if you own say a couple of dozen. But as always to each his own.

My apologies. I should have generalized what I said as I did not mean to say "you".

PS: Which Baader Morpheus do you own? And how are you liking yours? Also, that pic you have for your avatar, is that your skies? If so, you seem to have a great sky to view, which is really nice!!!

Here's my Morpheus and my 25mm I just got the other day. Only reason I have adapters on mine is because I own about five 2 inch filters. Really liking the Morpheus !!! Hope your skies are good this weekend !!!!

Cheerz!

 

2 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

With more eps you can mix and match them on any given nite, its not always the same old ....... ! It offers a great change of pace, a challenge and can make it more interesting incl. views that you / we didn't know is / was possible. There are advantages, knowledgeable expansions of expertise.

That's entirely up to the observer. If you want to own 100 eyepieces, that's your choice. If you want to own 5, same thing. I choose not to. Nothing wrong with either one. I get more observing time in by owning less.

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

I suppose I could put a restrictive field stop in it so I could see the entire (restricted) FOV.  If there was a Morpheus, APM UFF, Delos or ES-92 in that range with 70+ degrees, I might try it.  The various 20mm 80 degree Long Perng LHD/LER variations out there might be a workable alternative.  However, it would be so close to the the 17mm ES-92 in TFOV, that I'm not sure what the point would be.  I also have the 22mm AT AF70, and I can see the entire FOV without issues, but it isn't quite as sharp over those 70 degrees as the 22mm NT4.  I swapped back and forth and decided that I preferred the sharper view even if I couldn't see all the way to the field stop.

Selling off an eyepiece that comes very close to meeting your needs without a viable replacement seems silly to me.  For me, I'd have to go back to using the 22mm AT AF70 knowing it isn't quite as sharp as a former eyepiece I used to own every time I use it.  I really want ES to release a 22mm to 25mm ES-92 for this reason.

For me, the 22mm AT AF-70, (Mine was a Celestron Ultima LX after I sold my 22mm Astromania), was sharper across the 70 degree field over the 22mm Nag T4 even at the 70 degree mark. Without a CC, the 22mm Nag is very aberrated. Selling off any EP even if I don't have the FL at hand for a short period of time is no big deal to me.
I'm really not that concerned about it because I only observe during new moon or close to it anyways. It looks like you have enough eyepiece to cover what you need even if you DID sell some off, lol. Most eyepieces I ever own at one given time is 5. The least is 3. I don't relish the thought of owning too many eyepieces at one given time. I can't see going out in the field with 20+ eyepieces at a time. LOL.

18 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I can tolerate its SAEP mostly because with eyeglasses I can't get in close enough for it to manifest itself very much.  Yes, it's presenting more of a Delos to Morpheus sized AFOV, but that's still rewarding.  My grown kids and their SOs thought the views through it were terrific during an impromptu star party a couple of years ago after a holiday dinner.

I could never understand why people buy eyepieces and use them knowing they can't take in the entire FOV. If that's the case for me, off it goes for sale.  LOL. Newbs don't notice the things us astronomy veterans notice, which is probably a good thing. I remember back in 1985 when I used Criterion eyepieces on my 6" Criterion Dynascope and all I ever cared about was seeing things, lol.  Sometimes ignorance can be bliss, lol. (for all of us.)

The 22mm Nagler Type 4 isn't nearly as bad as the 12mm or the 17mm Type 4's. I've owned the 12mm 3 times and the third time owning it, I realized how much of a PITA it is. I'd never buy one again! lol. However, for me, the 22mm Nagler still showed field curvature even when I used a GSO coma corrector with it. I had it set up the right way with the distance at the right spot too. I changed it dozens of times to make sure it was and the FC just bothered me too much, so I sold that too.

If I don't like a certain eyepiece, I never keep them. If I kept all of the ones I bought over the years, I'd probably own over 400 easy. LOL

I now own 4 of them.  25mm X-Cel LX, 12.5mm Morpheus, 9mm Morpheus, and the 6.5mm Morpheus + two 2" barlows.

53 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I'd be seriously annoyed if I paid £450 or £530 for an EP which went all kidney bean on me! That would be going straight back to the shop....

All of the Type 4 Naglers do this really bad. The 22mm is the least offender though. You can read anywhere of people saying to "set the eye guard at the correct height and it will not happen", but this is teetering at the expense of cutting off the FOV. Not "ALL" Televue eyepieces are a god send as most will attest to, lol.

13 hours ago, Louis D said:

Yes, there is literally no way to avoid kidney beaning once you are close enough to see the field stop.  It's so bad, though, that it is hard to recognize as such.  Most folks write it off as a fussy exit pupil instead.  You can see how bad they are in my comparison image below:

The 14mm Morpheus basically has none.

That's a really good reference to have. I downloaded the pic for future reference. Excellent work. Thanks for posting this !!!

8 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I've yet to pin down specifically why I find my two Morphs so comfortable. It's certainly not down to any tolerance with regard to eye placement, as I do experience a bit of kidney beaning, especially when Barlowed.

A question: the outward face of the eye lens on the Morpheus appears to be completely flat. No other eyepiece I've seen has this feature, all the others have been obviously convex. Is this unique to that range? Does the feature have a particular purpose? Could it be contributing to the perceived comfort in use?

The Baader Morphs do not "kidney bean" like Type 4 Naglers do. You will experience "blackout" however, by getting too close to the lens. You just need to train your eye where to sit if "hovering", or if lacking in experience hovering, you can simply use the M-43 extender with the rubber eye guard up.  I'm one who "hovers" above the lens and in that regard, the Morpheus are the most comfortable eyepieces I have ever used and owned.

5 hours ago, Louis D said:

Try telling that to stamp, coin, memorabilia, etc. collectors.

You'd like Jay Leno since he keeps his extensive antique car collection running and drives them occasionally thanks to his top notch garage team.  However, he is very wealthy and can afford it.

LOL. This isn't astro gear. BIG difference.

Quotes from different astro sites: "I own several barlows, but I never use them"  Seriously? Then sell them.
"I own moon filters, but I never use them" ....Pointless. Same as above. They sit and collect dust. Sell them then.
 

*smh*

On 28/09/2022 at 18:26, LDW1 said:

If what you say is correct I will let all know, for $68 C I am not out a lot of time / money. I have an almost complete set of Morpheus eps but for the amount of time I view the moon / planets it makes no sense to buy the 4-4.5 Morpheus and thus my research and resulting purchase and solicitited experiences.

A better move would have been buying a good barlow lens to use with your Baader Morpheus for higher powers on planets or the moon. I own the 12.5mm, 9mm and 6.5mm Baader Morpheus eyepieces and I bought a 2" Alstar / Orion barlow for that very purpose. It gives me a 2.2x magnification boost for all of the Morphs and is excellent. Only $88 CDN dollars and worth every penny. You still get great eye relief by using the Morphs + the barlow, it makes using only three excellent EP's into six excellent EP's instead of just one, (your 4mm Antares W70 Series 2), which also only has 12.5mm of eye relief, and isn't anywhere near as good as the Morphs. I actually bought another 2" Alstar barlow and I screwed the lens to a 2" 35mm extension tube, (magnifies 1.85x) and now the three Morphs are essentually 9 high quality eyepieces !!! Not only that, all are 78 and 79 deg AFOV.    WIN - WIN.

 

Quote

I prefer this to barlowing my 9.5mm Morpheus, again I am not a barlower even though I own several

I will never understand this comment. "I own XXX, but I never use it" ??? LOL. I've seen people mention this about filters as well
They own several, but never use them. Pointless to own something, but never use it lol. 

Anyways, here's the magnifications I get, and it only takes a few seconds to grab one of the barlows and add it in, if needed. This is the same one below: A friend of mine owns a 10" Zambuto. We used my Alstar 2" Barlow and his Delos eyepieces on Saturn at 640x and on Jupiter at about 420x and the views were still super crisp, although we did bump the mag down a bit on both for even sharper views.

https://www.amazon.ca/Astromania-High-quality-Telescope-Barlow-Telescopes/dp/B0140UAHM6/ref=sr_1_2?crid=36CF4689RZ97Z&keywords=2+inch+barlow&qid=1665580833&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjI5IiwicXNhIjoiMi4xOSIsInFzcCI6IjEuOTIifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=2+inch+barlow%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-2

12.5mm Morpheus - 92x, 170x, 202x    (78 deg afov)
9mm Morpheus -     133x, 246x, 292x   (78 deg afov)
6.5mm Morpheus -  184x, 340x, 405x   (79 deg afov)

Just a suggestion....

On 01/10/2022 at 09:13, Woah said:

I recently got a 10 inch skywatcher dobsonian telescope and have been looking to get some more eyepieces. On Facebook marketplace there’s a listing for a Celestron Luminos 31mm eyepiece never used for $250AUD (about $160USD) which is significantly lower than its retail price. I would this eyepiece be a good choice to use with a 10 inch dobsonian or are there better choices for low power eyepieces arounf this price range?

About 5 friends, including myself tried the 31mm Luminos in my 10" dob. It had seriously bad eye placement issues and a huge amount of "edge of field brightening" which was very distracting. We all agreed that the person who owned it, (one of my observing buddies), got rid of it. He agreed and sold it the same week.

The 30mm APM UFF is way better and recommended.

https://www.apm-telescopes.net/en/apm-ultra-flat-field-30mm-eyepiece-70-fov

14 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Only the very last version of the XL had an undercut.

The set I had did not.

Have any pics of those? 🤔

16 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Pentax XW eyepieces have undercuts on the barrels.  The older XL eyepieces did not.

The undercuts on the XW's are significantly thinner than most others and so far up on the barrels that I never found them to be a nuisance in compression rings. But then again, I used Antares twist lock adapters on the ones I had, which meant no undercut problem at all. 🥰

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xw&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALiCzsbq-1WMEtKJS_zuUl3aJqsRadJ6vw:1662909467250&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq6trAhI36AhVGpIkEHdtACysQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1344&bih=689&dpr=1.25

No undercuts on the older Pentax XL's? I've never seen that before. 🤔

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xl&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi1k-zBhI36AhW6sXIEHddpCdoQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pentax+xl&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDoECCMQJzoFCAAQgAQ6BggAEB4QCFCtDFjTDWDeDmgAcAB4AIABd4gBwwKSAQMxLjKYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=HfwdY_WQJrrjytMP19Ol0A0&bih=689&biw=1344&client=firefox-b-d