£400 to kit out with range of eyepieces ...

[Paul-F]

Managed to get about 3 solid hours of good sky in tonight (along with some patchy cloud sky) to try the Badder Hyperions out ... the clouds had not yet cleared enough early on but I managed all of about 1 minute on the moon with the 13mm , I pointed the scope at it, focused, clocked some 'new' level of detail (it seemed that way anyway!) and then the clouds scuppered me until later when they got patchy enough and fully cleared up at 11 or so ...

The scope needed collimation so I collimated the scope with a barlowed 10 mm plossl on Polaris which had a nice gap in the clouds at that time - went to align the scope and after 3 attempts at auto aligning under patchy cloud did a 2 star alignment on the stars I could see (2-star alignment for the first for me time as it happens, might keep it that way as it saves a minute or 2!).

I did a tour of some clusters and nebulae as conditions would allow, changing the ep as I went to see what's what and it took a bit of getting used to tbh but I got there in the end and I liked the view, specially the improvement in contrast. Strange, but It was only really when I put in one of my previous eyepieces that I realised just how good these are and it was obvious where the differences were in that the previous fields were flat looking, 'whiter' and 'constrained' - won't go back now!

The seeing was not brilliant but towards the end I was wondering why getting focus was more awkward than I was used to .... it was only when I went to put the scope away did I realise that I had been using the 13mm and not the the 17mm that I thought I was using as I was swapping between those 2 mostly so all in all I am a happy bunny. Only used the 17mm & 13mm and overall impression is good - 21mm can wait for another night!

In summary - I aint gonna be using my previous eyepieces again (maybe the 38mm SWA) and I can see the 13mm BH getting some good use with the bonus of having the rings to reduce FL when conditions allow and the 21mm going to a FL of about 30 will be useful too. I really liked the 17mm however but sadly that one won't get much use when that 17mm Ethos I just ordered gets here Haven't decided whether to sell or send back the 17mm as I would hate it if any of my 'visitors' who have a go with my scope (kids included) tampered with the Ethos , I am bad enough as it is.

Budget blown but what the hell ... you are a long time dead! (Just don't tell the wife )

[Ags]

Glad you like the new EPs! Seriously, if you are getting an ethos 17mm, you won't use the 17 or 21mm hyperions - the view will be better in the ethos and it will even show more sky. If I were you I would send these two hyperions back.