TeleVue 55mm plossl

[Mr Fiery Jack]

Can someone point out of he benefits of this ep please? I am afraid it it escape me.

[Spec-Chum]

Handy against intruders?

[Naemeth]

If you've got a scope slower than about F/8, I can see it being useful. Any faster and it will be unusable because the exit pupil will be too high.

[Spec-Chum]

Pretending you're a Dalek?

[Naemeth]

From TeleVue:

"The 55mm focal length has the largest true field possible for 2" eyepiece holders -3 times the true field area of any 1¼" eyepiece. The focal plane is placed at the end of the barrel to minimize vignetting. Performance with Schmidt-Cassegrains is remarkable since it avoids the image degradation and severe vignetting which occurs when using telecompressors. Long eye-relief and unique adjustable eyeguard for eyeglass wearers."

[Grotemobile]

At £205, i cannot see the point as well.

In my 4" refactor this would give me a

mag of about 19.That is less than the

finder scope.You can get a good pair

of bins for that.

Steve.

[Moonshane]

it would appear designed for larger aperture Maks/SCTs I would think as an option to the more expensive 41mm Panoptic. BigMakStutov has an 8" f10 with a 2m focal length and this would provide magnification of 36x and the widest possible field (assuming it takes 2" eyepieces of course).

personally, I'd not buy one even though in my 6" f11 it would provide 29x and 1.7 degrees (my 26mm Nagler gives 1.3 degrees) but it will be useful for some.

[Naemeth]

~20x isn't bad at all. I use 25x regularly for DSO finding (magnification given by a 26mm Plössl). It gives me 2.08 degrees.

[alan potts]

The 55mm Televue Plossl is a very good eyepiece in a slow long F/L scopes. I have one, it was the first TV I bought. It is a s sharp as a razor and gives the widest FOV and lowest magnification of any eyepiece form the TV range, it is almost the same as the 41mm Panoptic but costs a good deal less. I am lead to believe the 42mm Vixen 72 degree gives the biggest FOV possible but there really won't be a great deal in it.

It is built like a tank, I dropped mine on concrete and the optics got off scott free but the top eyeview ring took a knock, it works perfectly but is almost worthless now.

I fine eyepiece indeed, but only for long focal lenghts unless you are an owl or have pupils that open to over 10mm.

Alan.

[AndyH]

I've never used the TV 55mm, but I had a lovely old smoothside Meade 2" 56mm. A quite excellent, but super heavy(by that era) eyepiece.

As previously mentioned, perfect for very long focal length scopes. It's on my 'wish I could buy it back' list.

Andy

[earth titan]

If I had the cash, it would be fantastic in my C9.25 (or as a paperweight).

[John]

I used to have a 2" 50mm Vixen plossl which I used to use with my C8 SCT. It was on of the "silver top" range from the 1980's. Optically it was great but the eye relief was long and there was not eye cup to guide your eye positioning. It was a case of "hovering" the eye an inch and a half or so above the top of the eyepiece to find the right position. The Tele Vue 55mm also has long eye relief but the later models incorporate a raised eye cup section to make eye positioning much easier.

With the 32mm 1.25" plossl retailing at £120 now, £205 for the 55mm is not unreasonable - there are is a lot more machining and materials involved in it.

[faulksy]

so what tfov would it give me in my c9.25 ?

[Naemeth]

so what tfov would it give me in my c9.25 ?

43x and 1.17 Degrees

[AndyH]

so what tfov would it give me in my c9.25 ?

Going by the quoted field stop of 46mm, then 1.12°

[Stu]

I did have a 55mm TV Plossl for a while. Aim was to try to get a wide FOV in the Mak which is more extreme than Moonshane suggests, it is F20, 4000mm f/l so the 55mm gave x72 mag.

It was useful as a finder ep but I still found the sky background bright and so didn't use it that much. I've largely given up trying to get wider fields with it, and concentrate on what it is good at, high mag lunar, planetary and smaller DSO's such as planetary nebulae and globs.

Stu

[Moonshane]

wow Stu I forgot it was as long a FL as that! at 139x this puts your 31mm Nagler into planetary eyepiece territory!

[nightfisher]

wow Stu I forgot it was as long a FL as that! at 139x this puts your 31mm Nagler into planetary eyepiece territory!

some people have aperture fever.......mak owners have focal length fever, though Stu`s 4000mm beats my 2700mm

[Moonshane]

no wonder he doesn't have a barlow!

[Moonshane]

just realised a further benefit of this eyepiece vs. 41mm Panoptic. the Pan is 950g and the 55mm Plossl 513g

[Mr Fiery Jack]

the 55mm Plossl 513g

Gordon Bennett

[Stu]

Yes, it is significantly smaller than the 41mm pans, a very different proposition. If my calculations are right, the Pana has a slightly wider fov so will give better results given the darker sky background. Price is obviously a major factor though.

Shane, you are correct, and I have been known to use re 31 nag as a planetary ep, crazy but it does the job when seeing not so good. 18mm BGO gives a nice x222

Stu

[Odd Thomas]

The TV 55mm Plossl gives me a full disc image of the sun in my 100mm, F32.5 H-alpha scope at around 59X.

[jabberwocky]

There is one on eBay at the moment for £150

[A40farinagolf]

In my CPC925 it's a great eyepiece, I bought a mint one recently with original caps and box etc for just over £117 - a bargain.

Pleaides were breath takingly good earlier this week, can't wait until he moon returns.

Haven't tried it in my APO130 yet.