My proposed Televue setup - Opinions welcome!

[Adz]

Hey all,

After buying and using a 13mm ethos, I can totally see myself steering to a more minimalist eyepiece collection which delivers premium performance.

This is my proposed idea for my 200p (1200mm f/6)

35 Panoptic 34x

+ 1.6 Barlow (21mm) 57x

13 Ethos 92x

+ 1.6 Barlow (8mm) 150x

6 Ethos 200x

+ 1.6 Barlow (3.75mm) 320x

I already have the 35 Pan and 13mm Ethos and the 1.6x barlow is on the way. So it's high power I am thinking about now.

Also I don't know whether a 35mm Panoptic will work well in the barlow, and I might keep a set of orthos hmm.

Thank you,

[Chris H]

The 35 Pan has a huge 24mm of eye relief the barlow is going to move that out even more, you're just going to have to see how you get on with it. You do however have quite a good range of magnifications with that set but are you going to use x320? And maybe there is a gap either side of x150 such as x125 and x175.

[John]

I agree with Chris that 320x will be rarely used at best. You may find yourself skipping straight from the 35mm Pan to the 13mm Ethos. You probably need something around 250x but I can't see how to get there

[Damo636]

I know you are trying to get full value with the barlow Adam but i think an 8mm Ethos 150x (5mm, 240x with barlow) would sit better in your line up and see a lot more use. The Televue Eyeguard Extender would help with the eye relief issue with the 35mm Panoptic + barlow combo, Tele Vue Eyeguard Extender EGE-0020 B&H Photo Video . I normally go straight from the 28mm UWAN to the 13mm Ethos and as yet haven't seen the need for anything in between, although i would like to add a 22mm t4 at some point in the future

[CGolder]

He adam,

Do you really think having a high power ethos is worth the money, afterall its normally used for planets which dont benefit from the huge fov

I have a similer line up but i am missing my planet eyepiece... csnt say i am considering an ethos for that role 40-60 degrees is plenty

Sent from my A101IT using Tapatalk

[newman]

Yes, barlows extend eye relief, and the longer the focal length the higher the effect, leading to an uncomfortable and fussy eye placement, blackouts/kidney beaning, and general annoyance. You might find it too much on that Pan. I'd suggest looking into a powermate instead. It doesn't alter eye relief, and doesn't require a refocus when you switch from ep only to ep+powermate. Yes, it's more expensive, but if you want a minimalist premium collection it's worth doing a long term higher investment.

Or, test with a borrowed regular barlow and see if it bothers you.

[John]

While it's true that you don't need a massive field of view for viewing planets, it does help if you are using a manual mount such as a dobsonian. Also the Ethos is a fantastic planetary eyepiece equaling the best "specialist" planetary eyepieces in terms of contrast and sharpness from my experience. An alternative might be the Delos of course which is designed to deliver the qualities of the Ethos with a more modest field of view and a more modest price (still not inexpensive though !).

[rwilkey]

Can't see any point in Barlowing a low power ep, exit pupil too large etc as has already been mentioned. I have kept my 1.25"s and I suggest you do, to have the choice and not to Barlow is much better IMO.

[Moonshane]

I agree that a 6mm would not seem to be a good choice for you. the 'problem' with an 8mm is that you have that effectively with your 13mm barlow combo.

what about a 7mm and a 5mm Nagler T6 for the same money approx? This would give some more flexibility, a wide field and still and small and excellent quality collection. You could potentially use the barlow with them on those nights of awesome seeing.

my own collection is heavily weighted (in number of eyepieces) to the higher power end as seeing varies so much. I have :

26mm Nagler

13mm Ethos

all I generally need with my big dob.

32mm TV Plossl

15mm TV Plossl

12.5mm BGO

10mm Radian

9mm BGO

8mm Radian

6-3mm Nagler zoom.

ehich are used on my 6" dob and small frac.

you could with patience buy all the latter eyepieces (bar the zoom) used for the price of one ethos.

[swamp thing]

Hi

I opted for the TV 2" 2x Powermate over a Barlow.

This does away with all eye relief problems associated with Barlows and allows big comfy 2" eyepieces to be used at med to high power.

I Personally dislike small high power eyepieces with their small eye lenses and tight eye relief so it's a real bonus for my eyepiece case.

In fact my highest power eyepiece is now a 12mm.

The Powermates are not cheap but their quality is world known.

you may swap and change eyepieces but a top quality Barlow, will be in your eyepiece case for life.

Regards Steve

[Adz]

Thank you all for the advice, I have been thinking a lot about this.

Some decisions I have made:

> Sell 13mm Nag (redundant now I have ethos)

> Sell 8mm Plossl (redundant now I have ethos + barlow, don't like the eye relief either)

> Make a basic collection up for my PST and a possible grab and go refractor at a later stage, this would be the following:

*24mm Panoptic

*18mm BGO

*12.5mm BGO

*9mm BGO

*6mm BGO

*TV 2x Barlow for nights of amazing seeing.

What do you think?

The dobsonian eyepiece set would be:

*35mm Panoptic

*13mm Ethos (I find I switch from these without needing something inbetween)

*Antares 1.6x Barlow to give 8mm 100 fov with the ethos (works great!)

*Wait for something to come up used like a radian 6mm

Shane your set is very interesting and I might consider a mix of many different type of EP with small stops in mag like you. As a side note, I tried the 35 Pan + 1.6 Barlow and you were all right, I had to stand about 3m away from the scope to try and use it

[spaceboy]

Why not use the 6mm BGO for planetary ? I know there isn't much of a FOV but the quality of the optics far surpasses a Radian IMO. Or you could just have my 7mm T6

[dweller25]

I bought a Zeiss barlow and with 2x15mm and 1x40mm extension tubes it gives amplifications of x2, x2.24, x2.47, x2.63, x2.87 and x3.11.

So with the 13mm Ethos in the 200 F/6 I have x92, x184, x206, x228, x242, x264 and x287 - perfect for the planets.

The x242 option gives a 0.83mm exit pupil which is about optimum for the planets.

[Adz]

Okay selling the 13mm Nag and 8mm Plossl.

Now I will have:

35 Panoptic 34x

24 Panoptic 50x

18 BGO 66x

13 Ethos 92x

12.5 BGO 96x

9 BGO 133x

8 Ethos (13 + 1.6x Barlow) 150x

6 BGO 200x

4.5 BGO (9 + 2x Barlow) 266x

3 BGO (6 + 2x Barlow) 400x

Quite a good range of magnifications I think. Might swap the 2x Barlow out for a 5mm BGO at a later date.

Any input?

Thanks for all the help, David I don't really like the idea of extension tubes to work out etc.

[CGolder]

are u ever going to use the 18 and 12.5 bgo now u have the 13 e?

[Alma]

I would agree with others that 3.75mm is pushing it at the high power end.

Personally, I love the Nagler 3-6mm zoom for high power views because you can zoom in just to the point where the image breaks down, which on my 4" apo is usually somewhere around 4 to 4.5mm. depending on atmospherics.

It produces high quality views too if you don't mind the relatively narrow f.o.v.

[John]

are u ever going to use the 18 and 12.5 bgo now u have the 13 e?

I'm thinking that too

I have nothing between my 8mm and 13mm Ethos and nothing between that and a 20mm Nagler. I don't feel I'm missing anything.

In this case though Adz will get the 8mm Ethos through using a barlow with the 13mm so it's possible that the 9mm BGO will get some use if he does not want to go to the hassle.

Sometimes though you have to stop the analysis and get on and see how it goes. In practice sometimes factors come into play that you can't predict on paper

[Adz]

CGolder I was more thinking about use in my PST? Thanks for the input though.

Alma the nagler zoom is growing on me quite a bit. Can it compare in performance to separate orthoscopics though?

John I can't use the 1.6x Antares barlow with my ethos in the PST because it's 2" and the 2x TV Barlow pushes the focusing point too far out so that was my reasoning for keeping it?

You are right about getting as much time out with the different setups as possible. Nothing beats hands on experience

Interestingly, do you think a 26mm Nagler would cope better with the 1.6x Barlow than the 35mm Panoptic did?