Dude_with_the_tube

looks good Floater.i have another 5 new Ep`s incoming to add to my box of goodies.

if you are really into T2 Naglers,you should get the T2 20mm. thats considered the best of the bunch and visually its a cracking eye piece.Doesnt come up very often,but well worth the search

get Type 4 Naglers Bish.

Type 4 has larger eye relief and where made for spec wearers in mind.

now all this makes sense Shane ,as i was wondering when i saw your adverts of selling BGO`s,i was like hmm,i remember you liked BGO`s a lot and then suddenly all of them up for sale? Nagler will be a nice replacement for sure and as you are a manual telescope user much "user friendly" option too with very little to give up to BGOs.If you are after the T1 4.7mm be aware that 4.7 has quite poor eye relief

Looking also forward of you getting that "wierd" looking T1 9mm Nagler.Looking at that 9mm reminds me of Kim Kardashian`s famous booty

A typical starters case, small with basic instruments, but with the addition of my 82° Explore Scientific and maxvision it's developing in the right direction. DSC_0303.JPG

we all started with something small and then it grow and grow from one case to 2 cases,then somehow the 3rd one appeared...

only 4 eye pieces Mike? Thats clearly insufficient and that :last one now didnt sound very convincing either 

common issue with binoviewers is the interocular distance and not many will have that 72mm you have Michael  that fat body of MV will not allow most people to get nose in between the eye pieces and as such you will have to strip them off that thick rubber housing.

MV to be honest is really the cheapest 68 degree option out there with alternatives being: Ex Sc 24mm and 24mm pans. Both of these have smaller housing and should work for all.

As i said,unfortunately i am replacing the focuser unit on my scope as i really dislike it not only in bino but also in single EP mode and fingers crossed this should not take too long.Once i have it,i promise,i will do a proper report to you guys about the MV and BGO performance in binoviewers.

I like the Denks so far, i understand its the maxvision combo what is off your interest? I have tried the 24mm and also the 16mm pairs a couple of times and so far i have been pleased with the performance.Only issue with 24mm is that you will have to put them on a "diet" by removing the outer casing and you will end up with 2 nice smoothsides,but there is a way around it and if off interest,i can post up a report how to do it and what to do to get them fitted out with rubber eye guards again.Performance vise on my F9 they are sharp,dont vignette and if pair of 24mm pans are too costly then these will be a direct alternative with a total cost for both at around 120 quid new and i would recommend them.As for the pair of 16mm,you dont need to strip them,they are very impressive in binos for planetary.I have not tried yet the pairs of BGO`s as i just got them but i am in the middle of replacing my focuser to a 2.5" moonlite as such a proper report on maxvisions and BGO pairs with binos will follow in a couple of weeks time.Also so far i had to use the OCS to get the binos into focus where after installing new focuser i will not need any and binos will work in native focal length.Thats my impressions in short and hope it helps.Anything else,,you can PM me any time.

And btw,your scope collection is very interesting.Some very serious instruments there

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

Very nice selection Dude

Cheers John,

if you stand them up i recon about 5 full sets should fit in that small case easy,but i am not going to try that

Small update on my cases.Got a binoviewer now and that one sits in the big case together with 2" Baader/Zeiss prism,ExSc 30mm,telrad and a pair or max visions 24 and 16mm (trialling them).

other pic is my "Precious" case with 2 full sets of BGO's and a set of Meade research grade orthos and Erfles.Does look like a serious ortho addiction

full set of Ethos, set of ZAO I and earlier run of Brandons,yes there is something in it   And some serious money investment.Well done!Not that much of interest in ethos,but would love to have those ZAO`s and Brandons.

12.5mm and 18mm BGO are very popular for binoviewers.Also i can only assume that production quantities of the longer focal length where lesser then the shorter ones as such 12.5 and 18mm where the ones disappearing off the stock lists.Quite possibly due to better eye relief these where more popular then the shorter focal length ones too.Go guess.

orthos are my main eye pieces used and I use all focal length starting from 4mm up to 28mm.i like them a lot and i have no issues with eye relief

grats Stu on complete set of BGo`s.

i like the wooden box idea for orthos.

Complete until the Televue Demon pays a return visit to my line of thinking.

easy way around it.I am colour blind so green colour is not on my palette of colors i recognize 

I have no idea who you mean

me neither

someone is becoming a serious Televue addict.....  

Good knowledge Dude, thanks

I've found one of what is presumably the new runs here: http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/07178-02.html and a couple of other places, which was what I meant by affordable. To be honest, I wasn't really thinking about it properly last night anyway - given that the scope I would primarily use any 2" EPs in will be the F5 frac I'm currently renovating, 30mm is about the lowest I can use because of the low mags and size of the exit pupil, 26x and 5.8mm respectively.

yep,these are the ones you dont want to waste your money on.the same 4000 meade 4element plossls are also sold under Bresser name too.cheap chinese glass comes under different names and if you cant sell them as individual eye piece,they come as bucket full sets or rebranded.

my personal opinion:better save up and buy quality and enjoy it.if needs to be save for few month or longer but get the one you really want.Old vintage produced in Japan are always off best quality,not easy to obtain sometimes,but then again,there are modern equivalents available in likes of Televue,Pentax,Explore Scientific,Vixen.All these despite produced in Taiwan still have high quality controls and are off good quality.Again,that is my personal opinion and you dont have to agree with it by any means necessary.

Lovely set. Is that 56mm a Meade 4000? How do the 2" Meade 4000 stand up to the slightly newer Meade offerings, anyone know? I might like to get my hands on one as they tend to be a lot more affordable and I love the 5000 UWA and HD-60 that I have already.

There where 2 runs of Meade 4000 series. 1st was the pseudo-masuyama 5 element smoothside produced in Japan and 4 element with rubber eye guard produced in taiwan. the one in the picture is the later one.Also there is a 55mm televue plossl available(the one you have),out of the bunch on test,best was the 5 element smoothside,followed by Televue,leaving the 4 element in the last place.However,difference wasnt that great,and once again,i can bet,under UK skies the seeing difference will be even less noticable,if any.

i doubt you could call the smootshide version very affordable,the whole series are thought after and a lot of people use them,collect them.At the end of a day it is a quality glass from Japan and unfortunately out of production.

The 2x20mm plossls are again later run of Celestron`s produced in China/taiwan.Not desirable by any means.WIll be OK-ish performers.Desirable ones are so called Silvertops.There is another topic about them here in eye piece discussion topic.

However,your 40mm ortho is very rare and highly thought after eye piece! If you could hunt down all the other remaining fullerscope orthos,you will have a nice collectible set of history.

Looks business Shane.I like your arrangement

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 ! 

Sorry John lol,

you are absolutely correct,1st gen where solid metal top with orange lettering,2nd run introduced black top section but the same orange lettering,still,where produced in the same factory in japan and had the same optics,as such,optically no difference.Later these where moved over to Taiwan/China factories and thats where it goes down the hill.

P.S. Both 1st and 2nd run should have lettering:Japan with V in the cirlce stamped on the barrel.

For use:1st and 2nd generation are the ones you want,for collectors its the 1st gen they are after.

Here's a photo of the ep's, I understand 17mm was also available so will keep my eye open for one.

P1050189.JPG

these are not the true "vintage"  full metal coat silver tops like the one on first post,but later run,still optically brilliant and very very nice performing plossls.Worth having a set of them as they are relatively cheap and beautiful.A lot of astronomers use 26mm in bino viewers.

You got there a nice 3 plossls there mate!

i did it too and my Ethos is gone  

At the end,it is up to each individual what eye pieces he likes or uses.every one seems to see things differently.There is nothing wrong having a top range eye pieces.As soon as it rocks your boat thats all what matters.there is a competition out there in eye piece production and that only does good to us end users as we are the ones who are hunting that better eye piece or that better image quality.

clear skies

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

yep,apart of ES being 30mm and 31t5 being 31 and ES being 2 times cheaper there is very little to none difference optically.Performs very well in all focal length scopes.Had it in 4.7 ;4.6 and 14,4 focal length scopes and had no issues at all.Obviously there is a coma in faster scopes,but unfortunately also Nagler cant do anything about it.Coma corrector will be required.If you dont have the funds for the granade from nagler,get the grenade from ES and be a happy camper I have one and its not going anywhere unless something substantially better is found ( dont know anything better as of yet lol)

i dont sell anything,i just put them in the focuser and squint through them and if Ep gets permanently stuck to my eye ball,i just use my other eye so at the end,i dont need EP turret as i have 2 EP`s permanently attached to my eyes