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Televue

Hex

By Hex
in Discussions - Eyepieces

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E621Keith

E621Keith

Posted
Posted

I think I said that TV eyepieces are very good. They're not perfect because no eyepiece is. Design compromises are a fact of life and I would argue that if the original poster has a set of EPs he's happy with then he should think hard before making a serious investment for something which, while it may be very good within its design parameters, might not necessarily be right for him. Horses for courses and all that.

Hex: try one, see if you like it :smiley: !

I agree with this point.

Televue has some great eyepiece designers and do a lot of innovation, but they are by no means the only one who's innovating. There are plenty of less popular designs out there that's just as good if not better than the best TV can offer. Pentax, Nikon, Takahashi, Docter, Leica ... TV has the most comprehensive range of eyepiece, but it is worrying some people think TV is the only premium eyepiece manufacturer or TV is as good as it can get. TV eyepieces are generally better than to those coming out of mainland China, but you can't make the same generalisation when you compare TV to those from Europe and Japan.

Also not everyone will be get the full benefit of a TV eyepiece, particularly those using slower scope such as SCT or Mak.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Keith,

I think for Ultrawide field viewing TV rule the roost. To the best of my knowledge all the other brands you mention are either small FOV or so expensive that they make TV look cheap and cheerful. For most of us the only direct comparision is with Pentax which is sadly in decline and even then has only 70 degree FOV. I would say that Pantax are only a faction better in some areas and not as good in other areas, you also have to consider the extra FOV offered by the front runners of TV as being a more difficult disign concept in the first place. If we are to compare apples with apples then it has to be TeleVue. I know Nikon make ultrawide field but look at the price.

I do not agree that most other eyepieces are good in slow scopes. I have had a 40mm Aero, 40mm Meade SWA and a 41mm Panoptic, the Panoptic makes the other two look very run of the mill in my F 10 SC and F 9 RC, The Aero was so soft at the egdes I got rid. I still have the other two and only have the SWA because no one wanted to buy it.

But I have to say thanks for informing me that Lieca make eyepieces something I didn't know, I have never seen one for sale, are they too very expensive.

Alan.

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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My favourite three TVs are the 31T5 Panzerfaust, the 22T4, and the 17T4. These I use more than the 12T4. The 31 provides stunning wide field views, the 17 and 22 give excellent vieuws of most fuzzies in the C8.

My top three Pentaxes are the XW10, XF8.5 and XW7 (i.e. all of them :D). Just great planetary EPs.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Keith,

I think for Ultrawide field viewing TV rule the roost. To the best of my knowledge all the other brands you mention are either small FOV or so expensive that they make TV look cheap and cheerful. For most of us the only direct comparision is with Pentax which is sadly in decline and even then has only 70 degree FOV. I would say that Pantax are only a faction better in some areas and not as good in other areas, you also have to consider the extra FOV offered by the front runners of TV as being a more difficult disign concept in the first place. If we are to compare apples with apples then it has to be TeleVue. I know Nikon make ultrawide field but look at the price.

I do not agree that most other eyepieces are good in slow scopes. I have had a 40mm Aero, 40mm Meade SWA and a 41mm Panoptic, the Panoptic makes the other two look very run of the mill in my F 10 SC and F 9 RC, The Aero was so soft at the egdes I got rid. I still have the other two and only have the SWA because no one wanted to buy it.

But I have to say thanks for informing me that Lieca make eyepieces something I didn't know, I have never seen one for sale, are they too very expensive.

Alan.

Leica makes a rather expensive 82deg ASPH zoom for their spotting scope. APM made an adapter for it and I think the whole thing cost around €800. Docter Optik (a Zeiss spin off) have one 12.5mm 82deg UWA.

Takahashi has the 90deg UW series costing between £450-550 in Japan, which is up to 15% cheaper than the equivalent Ethos.

Nikon 102 deg HW cost around £750 which is only 5% more than their Ethos 17, when you consider Nikon throw in a matched barlow for free, the HW sounds like a better deal. The 70deg Nikon SW cost around £300 which is around 15% cheaper than Delos in the Japanese market.

Kasai ( or at least someone in Japan) is making a 85deg Extra WideVue in 10,16,20,26,32 mm. There are almost no information about it in English, but I've seen it on several Japanese websites. Base on dates on websites talking about it, these has been around since 2010 latest and it already appeared to be an established eyepiece.

Japanese UWA exist and their prices are quite competitive, but it seems like they like to keep these to themselves. It's the Western importers who like to drive prices up to silly level. Nikon NAV SW cost €700(£562) from a dealer in Europe, but only $3900HKD(£300) from a dealer in Hong Kong.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Very full and comprehensive set of infomation, I don't think too many people will know many if any of these even exist, I didn't. I did check the internet in the Docter model which of course was matched against a Televue 12mm Nagler and lost. The review was on Cloudy Nights, they seem to dig up a lot of now rare gear. I still believe in the Ultra wide game they are a difficult act to follow.

Wouldn't be fun if we all liked the same thing.

Cheers .

Alan.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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I totally agree. Everyone have different taste, which is why we have such a diverse market. Astronomical equipment comes in all shape and sizes from the tiny 50mm refractor to the monster 50 inch dobs. When you look at optics use for birding, they are pretty much all the same. 60-80mm apo scope, 10x42 binocular ... Yes a £2k Leica may give better view than a £200 Chinese ED scope, but it's nothing like the difference between a £2k 16" dob vs a £200 6" newt.

I don't like monopoly and I'd like to see more players in the market. However, if it wasn't for Al inventing the Panoptic and Nagler, I think we would still be stuck with zero eye relief ortho and Plossl.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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I have to admit, I have never heard tell of Docter?

Apparently Docter Optik is what's left of Carl Zeiss Jena. The 12.5mm UWA was designed for their 80mm binocular but APM contracted the Docter to produced a astronomical variant that is corrected for the faster astronomical optics. I saw it in Widescreen Centre's APM stand in the last Astrofest and the price tag was terrifying.

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Mr Moff

Mr Moff

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I'd love to try some of those high end eyepieces from the makes I've not heard of, but the only thing is that I couldn't bring myself to spend £500 on an eyepiece that nobody has.

With televue there's so many happy people on here that I know it's a safe purchase.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Keith,

How do you use a 50 inch Dobsonian, set it up at the side of the house and look into the eyepiece from a first floor window. It must be massive or something like F1.5.

Alan

With a very tall ladder. There was a thread about the OMI 48" dob earlier this year. That thing was massive and needed a crane to lift the mirror into the mirror cell. The guy who owns it purpose built an observatory in the middle of a desert to house the scope. Its goes to show what aperture fever can do for people with seriously deep wallet.

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Hex

Hex

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How do we feel about the Powermate route? If its an option then which TV ep's would the forum suggest. The 2.5x would be the way to go I think. Currently I almost always use 25mm for Messier objects followed by a giant leap to 7mm and 5 mm for solar system objects. Don't get me wrong I do sometimes use the others but usually for lunar usage. The 18mm doesn't add that much really and I seldom use the 9 mm unless the seeing is terrible, and if its that bad in a 4 inch refractor its time to pack up and go to bed. I do use the 12mm a bit on globular clusters, but it things do start to get a bit dark. I thought a 14mm might be a good comprise, perhaps a Radion.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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I found this on the Doctor 12.5mm:

http://www.cloudynig...26/Main/3764442

The guy who posted that on the CN forum seems to have just about every top eyepiece that has ever been produced - many of them in binocular pairs too !

While reading that thread, I discovered Denkmeier makes a 14 and a 21mm 65 deg eyepiece with 20mm eye relief. I didn't know Denkmeier makes eyepieces.

That guy not only owns just about every high end eyepiece ever made, he send them to people to try before they buy, even though he is not a dealer. You need a lot of trust (in both the recipient and the postal service) to do that.

There were several Docter UWA models, the ones Alan referred to may be one of the older ones, because posts in that thread described the Docter as significant improvement over the Ethos 13 and some people were putting up their Ethos 13 for sale after using the Docter. I can't imagine how can there be significant improvement over the Ethos, but that's what they said.

Anyway, it's very interesting to find all these obscured manufacturers, but I can understand Danny's point about the risk of putting down hard earned cash down for something no one else has used. Apparently some of these top eyepieces (e.g. Leica zoom) really didn't like certain types of scopes (e.g. fast dobs), but work marvel on others (e.g. high end apo). At least with TV, you know they will perform well in any common telescope designs used for astronomy. If someone owns these obscure eyepieces/equipment, please bring them to SGL8.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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With a very tall ladder. There was a thread about the OMI 48" dob earlier this year. That thing was massive and needed a crane to lift the mirror into the mirror cell. The guy who owns it purpose built an observatory in the middle of a desert to house the scope. Its goes to show what aperture fever can do for people with seriously deep wallet.

this one is 'only' 40". makes me giggle every time I see it 1070_Movingaround_full.jpg

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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How do we feel about the Powermate route? If its an option then which TV ep's would the forum suggest. The 2.5x would be the way to go I think. Currently I almost always use 25mm for Messier objects followed by a giant leap to 7mm and 5 mm for solar system objects. Don't get me wrong I do sometimes use the others but usually for lunar usage. The 18mm doesn't add that much really and I seldom use the 9 mm unless the seeing is terrible, and if its that bad in a 4 inch refractor its time to pack up and go to bed. I do use the 12mm a bit on globular clusters, but it things do start to get a bit dark. I thought a 14mm might be a good comprise, perhaps a Radion.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

I find I only use my powermate/telextenders for planetary photography. I find it much less hassle switching EPs, than it is switching between EP without, to another EP with telextender/powermate, or even the same EP with telextender/powermate. I do not quite know why (or perhaps, down deep, I like have a crate full of shiny EPs ;) )

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