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Binoviewers - recommendation on eyepieces


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A few months ago I purchased some binoviewers with Antares 25mm plossls. I had to purchase a 1.6x barlow to obtain focus and I have to say that the views through my 4" APO frac, 6" Newt and 10" Dob are fantastic even though the EPs are quite cheap.

Clearly I need extra magnification and I thinking of buying Celestron X-Cel LX EPs mainly because I already have a 18mm.

However, as anyone other recommendations?

I would say I am not going to purchase another 13mm Ethos :icon_salut:

Mark

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The important point here is that you must use a pair of well matched e.p.s AND ones you can get your nose between! For me this ruled out a large number of preferred e.p.s including the lovely new Meade HD plossls. Consistency of quality in manufacture is paramount and having met and spoken with David Nagler, he stressed how important consistent and repeatable quality is to Televue. I bouight a pair of Televue 25mm plossls and they were so well matched and give such superb performance that I immediately purchased a pair of 10mm plossls as well. Now I am after a pair of 5 or 6mm e.p.s as well.

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never bit the bullet (not yet lol) but i did get informed that these EPs would be most suitable with the WO binoviewers i was going to get so.... sorry, no first hand i am afraid, only hear-say

EDIT: i will see if i still have the E-mail, not sure but it might even be a question i sent to telescope house themselves

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The important point here is that you must use a pair of well matched e.p.s AND ones you can get your nose between!

I never thought about my nose. The new Celestron X-Cel series might therefore be too big. Better think of plossls again although the ones Nigel mentioned appear pretty good.

CeeDee I am interested that you are buying higher powered EPs. The 1.6X barlow I am using appears to provide higher magnification than what I expected with 25mm plossls - hence thinking of 18mm/15mm EPs.

CeeDee are you using a barlow with your setup?

Mark

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for cheap and cheerful, meade 4000s come up 2nd hand all the time. also, in my experience, the e'ps don't need to be "exactly matched" - I guess most people's eyes are a bit different to each other and the brain gets used to merging the image ok. I actually used two completely different meade 4000 12.4mm e/ps (one was older and longer than t'other) until I got a matched pair and it was fine. :icon_salut:

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The 19mm panoptics are superb in my binoviewer and 100mm binoscope. Sharp stars and nil distortion to the edge of the field of view. I managed to buy both second hand rather than new from ABS although certainly not cheap.

The eps that come with the William optics binoviewer are also very good. I kept mine when I upgraded to a baader binoviewer. As the earlier post said, fat eyepieces such as hyperions aren't any good as you can't get your nose between them.

The idea of some high mag plossls has got me thinking ...

Whatever you chose they sure beat cyclops viewing.

Mark

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I want higher powered e.p.s as I am using these primarily with my new WO TMB/Lomo 80/600 refractor and the 10mm Televue plossls are great but could do with a doubling that when there's good seeing. The optics should be able to accommodate that magnification. However, I believe that the higher the power of the e.p.s used the more difficult it is to collimate them.

I have to say that binos are much much more relaxing to observe through. The studying the moon's detail is a real joy!

I have tried a 2x Powermate between the tube and diagonal but there's no way it will reach focus.

Remember: with Binos, nose-room is everything! Not that I've got a big conk you understand....

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Am thinking of trying a pair of the cheap vixen plossls in mine, but from the pics they do look a bit wide, so am also looking out for some cheap Meade 4000's.

I use a pair of cheap 30mm Vixen NPL Plossls in my binoviewers and they are fine. Lovely views and just enough nose relief for me.

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I had Televue Plossl in the past and now Tak LE's . The great thing with both is they are light weight and the quality control is good enough that you can buy 2 eps independently s/h and they simply match. Tried a few Baader orthos and even ordered a new pair as matching but the field stops never lined up perfectly.

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