Highburymark

The Nagler zooms have an advantage that not even the best Abbés can match - dialling in the perfect power must sometimes be more important than extreme performance. There’s another dimension to this - just because one eyepiece shows slightly more detail than another, doesn’t diminish the view in the other! There’s still more than enough to see! For me it’s been about curiosity to see what is possible.

Delite, XW or Delos, I’d say John. Take your pick - they’re impossible to split as planetary eyepieces. Maybe Ethos too, but I haven’t used a high power Ethos. I find the 10mm eye relief of the TOEs very comfortable, though obviously they’re not going to appeal to those who wear glasses. I’ve spent the past few weeks trying out my new Pentax XO 5.1, with an absurd eye relief of less than 4mm, so the TOEs are positively luxurious in comparison. It’s an incredible eyepiece. But the TOEs are in the same ballpark in my view, in that they show clearly superior detail and scatter control on the Moon and planets to the excellent Delos/Delite/XW group. Maybe not quite at XO levels, but very close. I’ve written about them at length elsewhere, and have tried not to turn this HR thread into a TOE-fest, (though a TOE-fest sounds strangely appealing), but if anyone wants confirmation of how good they are, just read the many reports on CN and elsewhere. To end this post on-topic, I think we can thank Vixen’s designers for both the HRs and inspiring Tak to produce the TOEs. If only they’d priced the HRs more realistically, they might still be with us!

Does make you wonder how long the TOEs will be around if costs are escalating so much - and whether there will be another specialist planetary eyepiece produced once they are gone. Although they must have picked up a lot of sales since HRs were killed off. Maybe that’s helped keep the line profitable for Takahashi. Vixen’s response suggests the HRs were indeed too cheaply priced.

The new focuser looks like a big improvement from earlier models. That old GSO Crayford was ok if not too stressed, but not great under heavy loads. Also - as the base scope has moved from using a singlet objective lens to an ED doublet, I wonder if you can push the magnification higher than the old LS60 when seeing allows? I seem to remember about 60-70x was the normal before - worth trying the new scope at 90-100x on a bright prominence when you get the chance.

Fantastic Paul! So you have two Starsense Explorer mounts in total - and it’s just a case of swapping scopes on the DX mount - as long as they don’t exceed the payload? Or Are there further changes required to use other scopes on this mount?

Excellent. Sounds like you have a keeper. And you can use a binoviewer with that nice B1200 blocking filter to bring out even more detail.

HR 3.4 and 2.4 for sale on Astromart in the States, if anyone’s interested.

Lovely scope! Congratulations.

Very interesting Dave - thanks for posting. £3,500 in 1999 would be £7,315 today accounting for inflation. Or £5,500 would be £11,495. Puts today’s prices into perspective. TSA-120 triplet is just over £4k for the OTA.

If that’s the case, it sounds like they underpriced the product in the first place. Clearly they are difficult and intricate eyepieces to make. But at £220, or whatever the UK retail price was, they were very cheap compared with other class leading planetaries.

I’d be in for a 3.4, and probably a 2mm too. Though I suspect, as Mike said, the price would be higher.

No worries Mike. That second diagram was indeed an LV as Louis suggested - at shorter lengths the LVs did apparently use a pseudo-Masuyama design with an added field group. There are no TOE diagrams as far as I’m aware. Back onto the main theme of the thread, I wonder if it would be feasible for Vixen to make further HR batches in future, or whether the tooling/materials are no longer attainable? I’m sure they could sell a lot of 3.4s if they were made available tomorrow.

Could be Louis. It’s definitely not a TOE though - obviously the eye lens is nothing like that size, as well as the wrong number of lenses and groups.

There was a well documented problem with internal dust on Tak orthos and TOEs a year or so ago - see various CN threads - I had to return three eyepieces to FLO because of it. Maybe that’s what you are seeing Martin? I certainly haven’t detected any such scatter with mine. But don’t want to derail the HR thread - pretty much everything I’ve read about the two lines over many years suggests they are equally outstanding eyepieces.

And I can’t believe I didn’t buy any of them……

Mike - I’m not sure that second diagram is of a TOE?? I presume it’s a comparison of two different HR designs??

Just clouded over in London after a hour of clear skies. As Nik said, a nicely busy disc, and was able to get up to 140x in very good seeing. I always think of Easter as the official start of the solar season - should be a good summer.

As you’ll probably be aware, there are lots of Gitzo Systematics to choose from. They’re wonderful - among the best camera tripods on the market, but still for high powered astronomy, it’s advisable to take the advertised payloads with a certain pinch of salt. I’ve always stuck to the assumption that if your kit doesn’t exceed half the marketed payload, then you should be fine.

Excellent - lots to see at the moment - nice combination of proms and filaments.

Love that mount and tripod!

Solar Ha is my main astronomy passion, so my favourite scope is this one. Two 70mm Solarscope filters on a TV85. Great for days like today, working from home, when the sky is clear.

I remember you reporting this Martin - very interesting, particularly as the 3.3 TOE is my favourite of the line. I’d love to try a 3.4 HR. It’s probably a good sign that opinion seems to be split about the capabilities of the HRs and TOEs - but both have raised the bar in recent years for planetary eyepieces.

I think part of the perceived problem is that Takahashi owners on SGL are not just among the most passionate advocates of their scopes, but they also post more. A lot more. Considering the number of - say - Celestron SCT or Skywatcher ED owners there must be on this site, they must dwarf the Takahashi Ultras!

Didn’t see your post originally Louis. No - I’ve never had the pleasure of trying a 3.5 XW. Tbh edge colour is not an issue with the XW5 at all - I’ve only seen it testing the eyepiece indoors with an F/6 60mm ED, not outside observing. I’m fairly sure the Delos 6 I once owned also displayed a touch of colour at the margins. I never really warmed to the Delos 6 for some reason - certainly I find the XW5 more comfortable. But I loved the Delos 10 and 17.3 - comfort wasn’t an issue there. Can’t explain why.

TSA outside preparing for a lunar session. Seeing was very good last night - 272x was steady and razor sharp. After the Moon, said a final goodbye to Mars for a while - even at 360x, details difficult to pick out. At the end I did a quick sweep through the open clusters on view - M44, M35, and the Auriga clusters. Even in London skies, they looked beautiful.