Why are orthoscopics so hard to come by?

[JamesF]

Ooooh like this one you mean

http://www.loisirspl...der/page16.html

I've a 12.5mm Circle T Japanese Ortho ..and I have to say I love it !

Were my French up to it I'd be tempted to ask them if they have any in stock and if they'd ship to the UK.

James

[gooseholla]

Were my French up to it I'd be tempted to ask them if they have any in stock and if they'd ship to the UK.

James

Write in English. They all speak english. If not, if they want money, they'll google it!!

[username]

Were my French up to it I'd be tempted to ask them if they have any in stock and if they'd ship to the UK.

James

avez vous une BGO 12.5? je voudrais un BGO 12.5. pouves-vous envoy angleterre svp?

you could try that (although a french housemate of mine used to burst out laughing whenever I attempted to speak his language so beware!)

[beamish]

just add it to your basket and take it from there, if they don't ship they'll soon tell you-use a CC or paypal (if they accept), crikey it's only France and what with "open market" etc....

[JamesF]

They ask that you contact them before ordering for the BGOs anyhow. I managed:

"Avez-vous une occulaire Baader BGO 12.5mm? Et pouvez-vous l'envoyer a l'Angleterre?"

which I think got the point across even if I can't recall enough of my O-level French to be sure. The response is:

"Il nous reste un oculaire Baader BGO 12.5mm

Les frais de ports sont de 21.53 euros pour une expédition en Angleterre.

Merci de nous préciser si vous souhaitez commander. Nous mettrons alors le produit sur notre site."

Which I believe means that I got the gender of "oculaire" wrong and misspelt it, but that they have one and it will cost me 21.53 Euros for an expedition to England. I wonder how much just to post it?

Not sure about the last line, other than that they'll put the product on their site. Thank you for <something> us if you <something> order. I don't know. My O-level was thirty years ago. I can get by at the market or buying wine, but ordering eyepieces isn't something my everyday Franglais covers

Brings the price to about £95 though. I think I might be more tempted to put that towards a new wide field eyepiece.

James

[username]

souhaitez is wish or want I think. You remember your o-level french better than I remember my gcse french!

£95 is quite expensive though, especially if you have other things on a wish list

[JamesF]

£95 is quite expensive though, especially if you have other things on a wish list

Yes and no. And therein lies the dilemma When you consider that FLO sell the BGO range for £75 plus delivery, but that no-one in the UK seems to have any and that an SGL member paid £100 for a second-hand 12.5mm a few months ago, it doesn't seem that extreme for what you're getting. Someone in Canada is selling a pair of 12.5mm BGOs second-hand, but I think they work out at about £95 each even before shipping.

On the other hand, £95 is a large chunk of a decent ultra-wide eyepiece and nice as it would be to fill in the gap between my 18mm and 9mm eps, I do at least have a couple of (lower quality) eps in 15mm and 12mm focal lengths whereas my f/4.7 dob makes mincemeat of my current 32mm one.

James

[faulksy]

i have the 9mm and 12.5mm bgo and the view through them is out of this world. no pun intended

[Dunkster]

Anyone ordered this 12.5 BGO yet

I might take a punt on a BCO if they ever turn up this season. A 10mm should go nicely in my armoury.

[JamesF]

I might take a punt on a BCO if they ever turn up this season. A 10mm should go nicely in my armoury.

It was supposed to be September, wasn't it? I wonder if they can hear the clock ticking

James

[Dunkster]

Good question! The BCO are listed cheaper than the BGO... does this mean they'll be lacking? Or that they're making room for a Greater ortho?

[JamesF]

Doesn't matter what price they are if you can't buy them

James

[City Kid]

I've got Baader 18mm, 10mm, 7mm Orthoscopics.  Under a steady, transparent, magnitude 7 sky I compared the 18mm Ortho with a TeleVue 17.3mm Delos, and the 10mm Ortho with a 10mm Delos.  Apart from eye relief and apparent field of view swapping back and forth on different objects I could not tell the difference.  I favor the Delos eyepieces mostly for the eye relief, because I usually use eyeglasses (or Dioptrx) when I observe, but the wider field of view is also very nice.  Yet the 18mm Ortho has comfortable eye relief even with eyeglasses.  I use it from time to time on deep sky instead of the 17.3 Delos. 

I use the 7mm Ortho on planets in a 6"f8 newtonian with Parks primary and Protostar quartz secondary optics.  It's an absolutely fantastic planetary eyepiece: bright, razor sharp, no scatter and it has amazing contrast.  At similar magnification on Saturn my modest rig blew a 4-inch Takahashi refractor out of the sky.

I mostly use the 18mm and the 7mm Baader Orthoscopics with my TV-60 apochromatic refractor for air travel and grab 'n' go, along with a TeleVue 32mm Plossl as a finder eyepiece. 

These Orthos impress me every time I use them.  Something nobody talks about is the light throughput, and color rendition.  The eyepieces are really bright, as well as sharp and contrasty.  I find this brilliance really helpful on faint fuzzies, even with a small aperture instrument.  Colors are vivid, yet natural both by day and night.  I've seen subtle colors on the Moon that I have only seen in photographs.

 I'm so impressed by these small, modestly priced eyepieces that if I get a binoviewer I think I'll get these in pairs - they're a lot lighter - and more affordable - than my other favorites: Televue Delos.  The 40-50* apparent field of view of these little Orthoscopic oculars doesn't bother me, but if you are truly a wide field junkie, they're not for you.

[Louis D]

Early adopters are reporting that Televue's new Delite range of eyepieces are just a bit better on scatter control and sharpness than the Delos and XWs which most acknowledge to be about even with good orthos, though not as good as great orthos like the Zeiss ones.

[cs1cjc]

On 18/09/2012 at 20:40, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Even on my C8, I rarely use anything below 7, but I find the 5.6m eye relief of a 7mm ortho unworkable. Even the 8mm eye relief of a 10mm is much too little. For people who wear glasses any ortho below about 16-18mm is going to be a struggle. Otherwise they are very fine EPs indeed, and very reasobly priced (unless you want a Zeiss Abbe Ortho ). I was tempted by a 25 ortho which came up for sale here, but decided against it. I would only use it in my solar scope, and there the Pentax XF8.5 provides just the right magnification for me (and gives me the full disk), so why bother with a 25mm ortho?

Not necessarily.  If you have very short sight like myself then I can see the full field in a 9mm and enough of the field in a 6mm.  It is best you try for yourself.

For observing I do not use glasses, because with these eyepieces my astigmatism is below the threshold that you get from this graph: Dioptrix.  For star testing, I always use glasses so any aberration I see is from the instrument being tested and not my eye.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

17 minutes ago, cs1cjc said:

Not necessarily.  If you have very short sight like myself then I can see the full field in a 9mm and enough of the field in a 6mm.  It is best you try for yourself.

For observing I do not use glasses, because with these eyepieces my astigmatism is below the threshold that you get from this graph: Dioptrix.  For star testing, I always use glasses so any aberration I see is from the instrument being tested and not my eye.

My point is that people who have to wear glasses while observing (e.g. due to astigmatism) cannot use them. The threshold mentioned in the graph is a guideline only, and should be modified depending on visual acuity. My astigmatism is about 2-2.5 diopters, so even an exit pupil of 1 (using a 10mm Ortho in my SCT) is problematic. Because my visual acuity is 1.6 (60% sharper vision than average) I do not tolerate aberrations much, and even at 0.5mm exit pupil I prefer wearing glasses. I have used short Orthos (down to 4mm) and Plossls (down to 10mm) for years. I really disliked their short ER. The moment I could afford the Vixen LVs, I pounced.