Why is this eyepiece combo better?

[imarcs]

Me and my 10 year old son have just spent 3 hours looking at Jupiter and experimenting with the few bits we have.

I have a Baader Genuine Orthoscopic 12.5mm planetary eyepiece plus the 10mm,25mm and 2x Barlow that came with the scope (Sky-Watcher Skymax-102 Mak)

Whats puzzling is that the 25mm+2x Barlow combination gave us a significantly better viewing experience in terms of clarity, focusing and ease of use. I would of thought that the Baader 12.5mm should of blown it away, but no.

The only thing i can think of is eye relief as the Baader appears to have about 0.0000001mm.

Any ideas?

[Capricorn]

What people forget is that there is no guarantee that the optical design of the eyepiece will compliment the optical design of the scope.

Simply sounds as if the BGO just isn't compatible with your scope. No reason that it has to be.

Aren't they a simple 3 element eyepiece?

I guess that thay are unchanged from the original design and eyepiece design has come a long way since they were first brought out.

[Ags]

Eyepieces are very personal. Many people cannot get on with BGOs...

[John]

Ortho's like the BGO have 4 lens elements in 2 groups - a triplet field lens and a singlet eye lens. They should be excellent in virtually any scope design. The 25mm / barlow combination will have lots of eye relief compared to the ortho - the barlow increases the 25mm's native ER which is already much more than the ortho has. This will mean that the 25mm / barlow combo will seem more comfortable to view though but I would have expected the BGO to deliver a sharper and more contrasty image with a bit more light transmission.

I guess it goes to show how personal eyepiece selection is

[imarcs]

Ortho's like the BGO have 4 lens elements in 2 groups - a triplet field lens and a singlet eye lens. They should be excellent in virtually any scope design. The 25mm / barlow combination will have lots of eye relief compared to the ortho - the barlow increases the 25mm's native ER which is already much more than the ortho has. This will mean that the 25mm / barlow combo will seem more comfortable to view though but I would have expected the BGO to deliver a sharper and more contrasty image with a bit more light transmission.

I guess it goes to show how personal eyepiece selection is

Exactly, i'm guessing also being quite new to this,we haven't worked out our optimal viewing positions and this doesn't help with such short relief. Will continue to experiment.

Thanks for the replies.