JTEC

The 12.5 mm Tak orthos (though not so much the LEs) I find to be very sharp, contrasty and relatively affordable. I have a pair for binoviewing. I also own some Delos, Morpheus and Ethos eyepieces and all are, of course, excellent in their own way. If I had to choose from those 3 for optical quality, it would be the Delos, though I think there is very little in it. Best value of the 3, the Morpheus. The sharpest eyepieces around that focal length for lunar detail that I own - and to my eye in my scopes - are the Tak 9 and 12.5 and the 11mm Televue plossls which make an exceptional planetary binoviewing pair with my TEC140 and Baader MkV. In this regard only, I would put both a bit ahead of the Ds, Es and Ms - though, of course, those eyepieces have other qualities that might tip the balance for you. Fact is, we’re spoilt for choice ;>)

It would be interesting to have them set up alongside each other to compare. I expect it’s a choice you couldn’t go wrong with either way. Odd that your messages were not replied to!

Agreed. Without excellent optics the ‘strut’ might not be apparent. In the TEC 140 I’m fortunate to use, the quality edge of the HRs and the Tak TOEs is clear. I honestly think that these are both very special eyepieces. I have the 4mm Tak and the 3.4mm Vixen, the latter giving me x288 and an exit pupil just below .5mm, which is way more than enough to see all that the scope will resolve and about as much as my floaters want. I’ve tried to compare the ‘quality’ of the two, taking account as much as possible of the difference in focal length. For a while, I preferred the HR but, staring long and hard into lunar detail, I concluded that the Tak was as sharp, showed just much detail and showed tonalities just as well, perhaps even a little more subtly. Or did it? I wouldn’t be able to rank them in terms of ‘quality’ - I think both are stunning. I don’t feel the need for shorter lengths than I have - incidentally, if you like the idea of playing with truly ridiculous mags, they Barlow remarkably well - but if I was, I’d grab them while they’re available, and I wouldn’t be quibbling about whether to go for the HR or the TOE.

I like Meteoblue and find it about as accurate in the short term as you can get. As someone said, the data source is prob the same as used by many other apps so differences may be largely presentational.

I think there’s no question that, given sufficient image brightness, binocular vision brings your scope to life in a way that mono viewing (itself an unnatural way for people with two eyes to look at things) never can. For planets, lunar and the smaller, brighter DSOs, you see more detail. With brighter extended DSOs, the experience is deeply immersive. (I don't wear glasses to observe.) That said, some people don't seem to get on with them. I’m convinced that this has nothing to do with any sort of mysterious skill like dowsing or matter of taste like enjoying oysters. There is no special skill required. But you do have to get the practicalities spot on for you: interpupillary distance, focus for each eye, etc, and you must have a binoviewer that’s well made and retains orthogonality through focus, eyepiece clamping, etc. If I had any money and hadn’t spent it all on eyepieces, I’d bet that quite a few people who say ‘I’ve tried binoviewers and I just don't get on with them’ might change their minds if they experienced an optimised setup. The received wisdom seems to be that the process of perception enables data from each eye to be combined in a single image that incorporates the information from both. I expect the truth is a lot more complex than that, but, subjectively, the experience is very much along those lines.

Yes, significant difference over here at this time though, Louis: £336 Delos £249 Pentax XW. Adds up if you commit to a set.

... it’s another way of saying that we’re spoilt for choice 😊. In terms of optical quality, they’re both, to my eye in my 140mm f7 apo, excellent. The differences are in form factor, handling preference, comfort, type of eye-guard, etc, I think, not in how well they deliver optically. These are personal things and you need to get a look at some to see whether they matter to you. Personally, I don’t find them important and am happy to mix ranges to get things covered the way I want. Another not trivial consideration is that the Pentaxes are a lot less expensive than the Delos.

I’d concur with John on the mid-price 🤣 Televues. I have the Delos in 8 and 10 and have used a friends 6 and 17.3. I’ve tried lots of eyepieces over the years and concluded that, for a middling afov eyepiece, the Deloses are about as good as you’ll get. I’ve now built in the Pentax XWs to cover the 5 and 7 f lengths. There are differences in feel and handling between the two ranges but I spent some hours staring at globulars the other night looking for meaningful differences - could I see more with one or the other, was either one sharper, giving better contrast, etc - and concluded that they were both pretty much as good as each other. Which is to say excellent. If I’d started out with the Pentaxes, I’d probably be building a set round them, rather than the other way round.

Ah, I know the area pretty well. I was with SEKAS for many years up to about 2000. Some of the best observing we had, actually, was at a sea horizon somewhere near St Margarets.

Agreed. It’s when it’s on and where it’s pointing that matters. If it’s on your head all the time, it points wherever your forehead is pointing which, with normal human movement patterns, is all over the place. Unless you’re a Dalek with seized neck bearings, it’s counterintuitive to do otherwise. So, as you say, a headlamp can be dual purpose in that, if you really must access artificial light while observing, it can also be cupped in your hand so it can be pointed carefully and with some shielding. I see that you’re near Canterbury. I lived at Old Wives Lees all through the 80s, watched the sky, at first quite dark, grow brighter as development took hold - I wonder what it’s like now?

Couldn’t agree more! Headlights are a convenience for the person wearing them and a darned nuisance for everybody else. Red light, as we know, is less likely to mess with dark adaptation but I'm not convinced that bright red light has no effect at all. And there is always that slight chance of white light unintentionally blitzing an observing colleague’s carefully preserved night vision. The beam of a headlight is constantly waving around with the natural movement of your head and following the direction of your gaze. And, of course, when you’re talking to someone, you’re shining the light straight in their face. At the very least, this is rude. Even with the best of intentions, it’s difficult if you’re wearing a headlight to behave normally and to avoid being a nuisance at the same time. You might not know it but the person on the receiving end of your beam will. At best, headlights are a distraction and a pest in a shared observing situation and should not, imv, be allowed when active observing is going on. OK if you’re on your own, of course, or when everyone has finished for the night and is packing away. A better and more considerate option is a hand torch which, as PEMS says, you are likely to point where you need it and not involuntarily spray around everywhere else.

I might have to, Stu, because when I look through the scope now everything will appear invertebrated

He’s under the glass 😊

FWIW, I think this is where the best balance of quality in a reasonably wide eyepiece with comfortable eye-relief against price is currently to be found. Not cheap but not crazy expensive either. You might regret going halfway house to start with - a process of continuous ‘upgrading’ ends up being the most expensive way to do things in the long run. I have the 17.5mm Morpheus (and the 6.5) and think they’re excellent. I also have some of the Delos range and had thoughts of getting more. They’re excellent of course but nearly twice the price of the Morpheus and, imv, not ‘twice as good’, whatever that would mean. So, I’ve moved towards the Morpheus and am looking at these and the Pentaxes (priced in between) to fill the space between my 8mm Delos and 4mm Tak TOE. The Televue prices - though the quality is beyond reproach are, to my mind, now looking harder and harder to justify. That’s a bit of a digression, but my point is that you can get excellent eyepieces for ‘moderate’ prices, as long as you don’t want special features like, say, 100 degrees. I don’t know of any top quality eyepieces that are cheap to buy, but others might. I think the TV Plössls come close but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.

I believe so. Here are a couple of pics.

👍🏻

I have the Televue OIII and find it to be superb. I’ve used others, including an earlier Lumicon, a Baader and the much cheaper ES. The Televue blew my socks off for visual quality, contrast and depth. I wasn’t aware that it was developing that reputation but I can well believe it.

I bought my 2” direct from the US. Good service but no advantage with the duties they slap on. Better to use Okularum. With regard to duties, an (unrelated) case in point was the Burgess 10mm Supermono I bought. Very interesting eyepiece and excellent on axis. Good value at the point of sale but, crikey, by the time Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise and HMRC had done their bit ... 🤨.

Okularum sell the Omega NPB filters. https://okularum.eu/. I have them in both sizes. FWIW, they’re my preferred UHC type filter and many experienced observers that I’ve shared with also seem to like them a lot. Don Pensack posted on here with useful information about them.

My overall favourite for the big bright globs in my TEC 140 is not dissimilar- it’s the 8mm Delos. Not to say I wouldn’t pop in some much shorter fls to try and dig in a bit more. Those globs are also stunning in the C11 with binoviewer as are many of the brighter more extensive DSOs.

My experience too. I have the, 6, 9 and 12.5 mm Taks, the last two in pairs for the binoviewer. Other fairly simple eyepieces that are very sharp and, to my eye, deliver on those criteria, if not on all others, are some of the TV Plössls, though these look warmer to me and I like them more on lunar and planetary than deep sky. The BGOs I used to have - though not the BCOs, which I tried and sold - were pretty much on a par, imv, with the current Taks. For resolution of critical detail, contrast and transparency, the orthos are the closest thing to a final answer in my bag and, in use, I’m likely to funnel down towards them after starting with wider fields. But it’s not that simple. There are so many options open to us. We can experience the sky at multiple breadths and scales and, nowadays, all with remarkable clarity. Spend an evening staring into M42 and, if you’re like me, you’ll experiment with different eyepieces, scoping it’s extent with one and probing its depth and detail at different scales with others. Each eyepiece will show you something different depending on field, mag and individual character. Together they build a picture that no single eyepiece can. Some years ago I sold a small refractor and forked out for a 13mm Ethos. It is a wonder of optical design and execution. Is it as sharp and contrasty as an ortho? Personally, I don’t think so but it’s still remarkably so considering all else that it achieves. If I were doomed to be stuck with one eyepiece for the remainder of my observing career and the choice was between the Ethos and a 5mm ortho, it wouldn’t be difficult to decide, especially if my scope was a big push-around Dob. 👀 Personally, and based only on the eyepieces I’ve had a chance to use, I think the eyepiece that comes closest to squaring the circle is the Delos.

Thanks, 1502. Yes, it tends to confirm what I’ve heard from others who’ve tested mass-produced mirrors, for example, those used in the Skywatcher Dobs: that many of them are quite good. I’ve not seen actual figures but the opinions came from people who are technically expert and know what they’re talking about. I suppose there might be issues around consistency. Peter Drew told me that the mirrors in the Astrosystems 150 f6 scopes were typically at least 1/8 wave - and certainly the images have a feel of quality. I think it is noticeable in average conditions and perhaps has to do with smoothness, etc. Whether or not there’s a straightforward relationship between required accuracy of figure and available seeing I don’t know, in the way that there is with aperture. I can see how there might be but I suspect it’s more complicated than that - for example, with planetary observing where overall seeing might be ordinary but with rare moments of excellence that you’d not like to miss out on. I guess you wouldn’t want to be thinking ‘Well my average seeing is 2-3 arc sec, so I only need an average mirror’. There are probably people on the forum well-placed to comment. I’ve owned, I think, 6 Newtonians of varying sizes over the years and, size for size, this one is a standout. It looks like a simple design to replicate and, as your 8” shows, was scaleable. You’d have thought a 10” might be viable. Yes, it was Rob Miller. 👍🏻

All of those things, 1502, minimalist and clever. Rob built me a 10 inch on a GEM in, I think, ‘79. Again, in a different way, an excellent scope. As you did with yours, I sold it and later wished I hadn’t. I drove up from Kent and sold it to a bloke in Bolton. I set it up for him and he said ‘Ah, you look in at the side do yer?’ I should have reclaimed it there and then. Leaving aside Obsessions and the like, is OOUK the only place to go now for a Newtonian with better than average optics, do you think?

Here it is 🙂 It’s wearing an extra light shield and a Telrad in place of the original optical finder