Baader Classics - the story so far ....

[Spec-Chum]

F5 should be fine with an ortho. Even f4.

An ortho is well corrected by definition

[The Flinty Fox]

Thanks for that spec-chum

[JamesF]

Yes, my BGOs work very nicely in my f/4.7 dob.

James

[yelsac]

Get both.....i use a selection of orthos from 9mm through to 25mm in my 180 Mak. An ortho makes the most of the Maks narrow field of view and of course with the huge F ratio orthos arent pressed into edge aberrations. An ortho and a Mak...its a match made in heaven

Thanks for the thoughts

Might not be able to afford them both at the mo, so I was trying to see which would be best to get first. I suppose the 18mm would double up as a 9mm through a barlow but then do you loose contrast & basically the whole reason you buy an ortho by putting into a barlow?

[The Flinty Fox]

Thanks James.

I'm guessing that the classic plossl not being an ortho might not fair as well unless they have done something to it. Sorry if that sounds a bit stupid.

Paul.

[JamesF]

I'm guessing that the classic plossl not being an ortho might not fair as well unless they have done something to it. Sorry if that sounds a bit stupid.

Fairly early on I bought the Revelation eyepiece set and whilst I've replaced pretty much everything now, I still use the 32mm Plossl and the 2x barlow (for imaging). The Plossl is cheap but competent and decent value for money. Unfortunately the first time I put it in the dob it was horrible. There were internal reflections everywhere, the image was distorted and it was basically unusable. So I picked up a rather lovely 2" Panoptic to use instead. I'm sure a Tele Vue Plossl would be more than adequately behaved, but lower-end plossls and fast optics just don't appear to be made for each other.

James

[John]

Thanks for the thoughts

Might not be able to afford them both at the mo, so I was trying to see which would be best to get first. I suppose the 18mm would double up as a 9mm through a barlow but then do you loose contrast & basically the whole reason you buy an ortho by putting into a barlow?

The Q-Turret barlow is 2.25x and works very well with the Classic orthos. If there is any loss of contrast it's barely discernable to me at any rate.

On using the eyepieces with F/5 or F/4 scopes, I don't think they will be sharp right across the 50 degree field of view, as they were not in my F/6.5 and F/7.5 refractors as I reported. The question is whether the drop off in sharpness is made more severe by the faster focal ratio or whether it remains minimal as it is with my refractors. I'm not in a position to answer that right now.

On the Classic 32mm plossl, I believe it is a conventional plossl design although the field of view is a little smaller than a standard plossl is, which surprised me. It's a decent 32mm plossl but, so far at least, it's not struck me as a "stand out" eyepiece, if you see what I mean !.

[The Flinty Fox]

Fairly early on I bought the Revelation eyepiece set and whilst I've replaced pretty much everything now, I still use the 32mm Plossl and the 2x barlow (for imaging). The Plossl is cheap but competent and decent value for money. Unfortunately the first time I put it in the dob it was horrible. There were internal reflections everywhere, the image was distorted and it was basically unusable. So I picked up a rather lovely 2" Panoptic to use instead. I'm sure a Tele Vue Plossl would be more than adequately behaved, but lower-end plossls and fast optics just don't appear to be made for each other.

That's what I though. I think what I might do is when the weather finally clears is check out the 6mm I have and if i'm happy with it then get the 18mm and 10mm. Then replace my 32mm with something a bit better but not sure what yet. Had a look at the panoptics and they're a bit ££££. Have though about the tv 32mm plossl but they are still quite expensive. having said that they are tested down to f4 and other plossls such as celestron and SW apparenty work best at f6 and higher.

I might even get the Q barlow but not sure about that yet.

Thanks

Paul

[John]

...An ortho is well corrected by definition...

But only across a 40 degree or so apparent field of view.

[Spec-Chum]

But only across a 40 degree or so apparent field of view.

Indeed. I guess these could be classed as super ortho. Or ortho++ for those of a programming background

[The Flinty Fox]

On using the eyepieces with F/5 or F/4 scopes, I don't think they will be sharp right across the 50 degree field of view, as they were not in my F/6.5 and F/7.5 refractors as I reported. The question is whether the drop off in sharpness is made more severe by the faster focal ratio or whether it remains minimal as it is with my refractors. I'm not in a position to answer that right now.

Lets hope not, minimal sound fine to me.

[crazyjedi]

Does anyone know how these will work in an f5 newt or will that be pushing them to hard?

Still waiting try my 6mm.

Don't think my 32mm omni likes f5 very much shows distortion at the edges enough to spoil my view of m45.

Cheers

My BGOs are very good in my f5 newt. The 6mm beats my 5.5mm Meade 5000 plossl in every department and the 18mm is very nice for DSOs

[The Flinty Fox]

My BGOs are very good in my f5 newt. The 6mm beats my 5.5mm Meade 5000 plossl in every department and the 18mm is very nice for DSOs

That's impressive. Those meade 5000s look very nice plossls and not that cheap either. I might try

to keep an eye open for BGOs they are becoming very scarce although I did see a 5mm on ebay today for then £21. Might watch that. Cloudy again but tomorrow looks better so finally might get to take my 6mm BCO out.

Thanks

[crazyjedi]

That's impressive. Those meade 5000s look very nice plossls and not that cheap either. I might try

to keep an eye open for BGOs they are becoming very scarce although I did see a 5mm on ebay today for then £21. Might watch that. Cloudy again but tomorrow looks better so finally might get to take my 6mm BCO out.

Thanks

I have always rated my Meade plossls highly and yes they were fairly expensive. But the BGOs have been a real eye opener. I just wish I had got hold of the 9mm when they were around.

[Space Beagle]

Had a quick look through the BCOs last night at Jupiter and M42. I really liked the view through the Tal 100rs (f10) with the 10mm, very sharp image, pin point moons and set in nice black sky. The 6mm made Jupiter a little blury, but I think the seeing was contributing to that, as now and the the view did sharpen up really well. All three eps gave very nice views of M42, seemed clearer/sharper than my BSTs, to my eyes. I can see why the 18mm will also make a good DSO ep as mentioned before. Didn't get to look at the Moon yet, im looking forward to that with these eps!

Doc

[AndyH]

Good, good, good. Keep the reports coming folks !!

[astrofox]

Like the song says you'll miss me whenI am gone. Dont I wish I had got the 9mm when they were still available

[John]

Like the song says you'll miss me whenI am gone. Dont I wish I had got the 9mm when they were still available

You mean either the Baader GO or the Circle-T 9mm I guess ?.

I'd say that the 10mm BCO was at least as good as the Circle-T 9mm, perhaps a little better, if it's any consolation.

[crazyjedi]

I wish, I had gotten a 9mm are BGO

is the BCO definitely as good? Reports of fuzzy field stops are worrying.

[John]

I wish, I had gotten a 9mm are BGO

is the BCO definitely as good? Reports of fuzzy field stops are worrying.

Well I've only tried 3 of them !

The 6mm I have does have a slightly fuzzy field stop when held up to the light. It does not seem to affect the views though so I've concluded that it's the stop itself that is not quite on the focal plane of the eyepiece rather than any issue with the optics in the eyepiece.

The 10mm and 18mm have very sharp field stops.

As for BCO v's BGO performance - see my review !

[nightfisher]

Im still waiting for my barlow i had figured they were in stock but not so

[John]

I used all four eyepieces with a 12" F/5.3 newtonian tonight and they continue to impress. Notably the 18mm again proved to be an excellent deep sky eyepiece showing really extensive detail and contrast in M42 just slightly superior (to my eyes) to the Baader Genuine Ortho and, a little surprisingly perhaps, the 32mm Classic Plossl delivered very nice views with the field being seemingly pretty much sharp right across despite the faster (F/5.3) focal ratio.

So how would I rate the Baader Classic eyepieces now ?:

Baader Classic Ortho 6mm = a very good ortho. Very nearly as good as the Baader GO but not quite as good light scatter / flare control around bright objects but excellent high power, high contast performance all the same.

Baader Classic Ortho 10mm = No direct BGO equivalent. Seems an excellent ortho in it's own right though. Noticably sharper and better light throughput than a standard 10mm plossl that I compared it with on M42.

Baader Classic Ortho 18mm = A superb deep sky object / low power eyepiece. Seems to show higher light transmission than the Baader GO.

Baader Classic Plossl 32mm = A very good 1.25" 32mm plossl eyepiece, albeit with slightly smaller field of view than most.

I'll have another look at the Q-Turret 1.25" barlow lens at the next opportunity but the evidence so far seems to show that it's optically very good.

More in due course

[Astro_Baby]

John, do you think the higher transmission could be down to the coatings ? i always find my UO VTs to be a bit brighter than the BGOs, till now I have always put that down to better eye position as the VTs are more comfy for me. I find i tend to squint a bit with the GOs as they kit my eyelashes very often.

I am also minded of something I read ages ago about Brandons not using multi coatings because they found it reuced transmission and didnt affect scatter ( or something like that )

[Richardisgreat]

Hi John thank you for the reviews. If you had to choose between a 6mm Circle-T or a 6mm BCO would you go for the BCO?

[The Flinty Fox]

The 6mm gave me my best view of jupiter last night showing really good contrast which was the best i've seen. The sky was really dark with jupiter showing as a bright orb with some good detail.

Also had a look at m42 which to looked very nice and could clearly make out the gas cloud at 125x. I'm still quite new to all this but even to me space is noticably darker.

The 32mm plossl is starting to sound good.

Paul