Astro Hutech Orthoscopics compared with Baader's Orthoscopics

[John]

Introduction

It seems as if we heard about the impending arrival of a further range of orthoscopic eyepieces on the market sometime ago now and, as often seems to happen, the wait for them to appear on the dealers shelves was longer than originally hoped for.

Now they are here and First Light Optics have kindly loaned me a set of the Astro Hutech Orthoscopic eyepieces to compare with the Baader Genuine and Classic Orthoscopics, also on long term loan from FLO. Thanks FLO

The Astro Hutech Orthoscopics are priced at £89.00 each and the Baader Classic Orthoscopics are £49.00 apiece. Baader Genuine Orthoscopics are available on the used market for prices between £50 and £80 each but they were £75.00 new before being discontinued.

For the purposes of this report I’ll use the term Hutech, rather than Astro Hutech when describing their orthoscopic eyepieces. I’ll sometimes resort to BGO and BCO to indicate the Baader orthoscopics of the Genuine and Classic varieties too.

This was quite a challenging report to compile really because the Baader Genuine Orthoscopics and their Hutech counterparts are so similar, as will be seen. I’ve reported on the performance of the Baader Classic Orthoscopics in this earlier post:

http://stargazerslou...e-story-so-far/

and drawn some comparisons there with the nearest Baader GO equivalents. The reader can assume that those differences still hold when considering Hutech Orthos and Baader Classics as well.

Because of the physical and optical similarities the observation section of this report is rather brief – in many cases there were simply no observable differences to report on, or none that I could see anyway !

I’ve loaded some pictures of the eyepieces discussed at the end of the report and hopefully these will help illustrate the physical features that I describe.

Looking At Them

The Baader Genuine Orthoscopics have engraved and colour filled logos, lining and eyepiece data on their barrels. The Hutech Orthoscopics and Baader Classic Orthoscopics are screen printed and use much plainer graphics. The quality of the printing looks better on the Hutechs but time will tell as to whether they withstand use better than the Baader Classics.

The BGO’s and Hutechs share the same quality build with a fine satin body finish and traditional chrome plated brass barrels. There is no safety undercut in the barrels of any of these orthos, which might actually please some folks as the undercuts can snag on compression rings when inserting and removing the eyepiece. The Classic Orthos are much lighter and finished to a competent but not deluxe black powder coat. Their barrels are machined aluminum and also powder coated.

The barrels make up quite a lot of the difference in weight between the BCO’s and the BGO’s / Hutechs with the latter having a rather pleasing “heft” to them for their size.

While the 5, 7, 9, and 12.5 Hutech Orthos look identical to the Baader GO equivalents, the 18 and 6mm Hutech optics are housed in shorter bodies. In use this means that they seem to reach focus around 8mm further out from the focus position of the other Hutechs and the BGO’s. For some reason the Hutech 6mm Ortho does not have the circular micro ridges surrounding the eye lens that the other models in the range and the Baader GO’s use. This seemed to have no consequence whatsoever in use though.

The coatings on the optics, the eye lens diameters and the fields of view of the Hutechs seem absolutely identical to the BGO’s. Looking into the barrels of the eyepieces, the lens housings look the same as well, with the exception of the 6mm Hutech which uses a slightly different design to it’s field lens retaining ring / field stop. Again this is not noticed during use and the field of view looks exactly the same as the Baader GO 6mm.

I’ve described the physical properties of the Baader Classic Orthos in my earlier report on them (see link above). Their eye lenses are a little larger than the equivalent focal length Hutech and Baader GO’s which does actually make the act of finding them with the eye in the dark and placing the eye, a little easier.

The Hutech boxes are very similar to BGO boxes except in colour. The lens caps used are exactly the same. The Baader Classic’s use different caps on both ends (the top end cap needs to accommodate the folding rubber eye cup) but they come in simple zip lock plastic bags, presumably to keep their costs down.

The Hutech’s have “Japan” printed on them underneath the Astro Hutech branding. Baader GO’s are known to be made in Japan but don’t mention this on either the eyepiece or the box it comes in. There is no mention of the origins of the Baader Classics but they have a similar finish to the Hyperions so perhaps are from the same manufacturer ?. I don’t know this for sure though.

As has already been mentioned, the Hutech Orthos are not par-focal. 18mm and 6mm need 8mm or so of outward focuser movement to reach focus. The rest of the Hutechs are more or less the same (ie: just half a turn or less on the focus wheel / knob) focus position as the Baader GO’s.

There is quite a lot less body to get hold of with the 6mm Hutech compared with the 6mm BGO which means more care is needed in handling them in the dark I found.

The field stop edges in the 5mm Hutech example I have seem just a little rough when seen against the bright background, compared with the BGO 5mm. On the other focal lengths of all the orthos the field stops were very sharply defined. The apparent field of view size seems consistent across the Hutech Ortho and Baader Genuine Ortho ranges at around 40 degrees. The Baader Classic Orthos offer 50 degrees but it’s not 100% sharp all the way across, as mentioned below.

Looking Through Them

Performance with my 12” F/5.3 dobsonian and 120mm F/7.5 ED refractor shows Hutechs are virtually identical to BGO’s in performance across all the focal lengths where I could directly compare them, ie: 5, 6, 7 and 18mm. I’ve no reason to suspect anything other than this for the 9mm and 12.5mm focal lengths either but I did not have Baader GO’s in those focal lengths to do that comparison. I did compare the 9mm Hutech ortho with the 10mm Baader Classic Ortho though.

All the orthoscopics compared here share the general characteristics of the design, ie: eye relief which is around 80% of the focal length of the eyepiece, relatively small eye lenses and a field of view which can seem narrow compared with the widely available wide field eyepiece designs that are popular these days. If you switch to these after using an eyepiece such as a BST Explorer with it’s long eye relief and large eye lens, the experience will take some getting used to. Beginners can find using orthoscopics challenging for these reasons. Those that wear glasses when observing will probably only find orthoscopics of 12.5mm or longer to be acceptable.

Targets viewed over a number of sessions included Comet Panstarrs, the globular clusters M13 and M92, binary stars Iota Cass, Epsilon Bootes, Gamma Leonis, Gamma Virginis (Porrima) and Delta Cygni, the Moon, Saturn and its rings and moons, galaxies M51, M81, M82 and M57, the famous Ring Nebula.

Viewing conditions varied widely during the comparison period but I’ve used the eyepieces enough now to have got to know them and their characteristics a little better.

Light scatter and ghosting around bright objects are well controlled and this is one of the strengths of a well executed orthoscopic design. All three ortho designs being compared did very well in this area. Previous experience suggests that the Baader Classics just show a touch more scatter around really bright objects such as the star Sirius but this is not really replicated when viewing, say, Saturn. This is also one area where a good ortho can exceed the performance of even top quality wide and ultra wide eyepieces.

Contrast is another strong point with the ortho design and the examples being tried here showed tones within nebulae and galaxies and those on the lunar and Saturnian surface as well as the conditions would allow. I would not single out any of the eyepiece types in this respect – they appeared equally competent to me.

Light throughput through these eyepieces seemed very good. The fainter deep sky objects seemed as well defined as the scopes aperture and seeing conditions could permit and at least as bright as premium eyepieces such as my Pentax XW or Tele Vue Ethos at similar magnifications.

The Baader and Hutech orthos did not appear to add any noticeable colour tint to, for example, the lunar surface, that I could see. They seemed very neutral in this respect to my eyes.

On the often discussed subject of edge sharpness, the BCO’s are very sharp across the central 40 degrees or so of their field of view. There seems to be a “drop off” then when objects are noticeable less sharp. The BGO’s and Hutechs are sharp until just before an object reaches the field stop edge. Sharpness just drops a touch as an object slides behind the field stop. Unlike wide and ultra-wide eyepieces where these affects are amplified as the focal ratio of the scope gets lower or faster, the edge performance of the orthos seemed the same to me in both the F/7.5 refractor and the F/5.2 dobsonian.

From the above, you can see the challenge I had in producing this report. In truth there is precious little to separate these eyepieces in performance terms, often, nothing at all that my eyes could see !.

Summary

I think the big question hanging over the Hutech Orthoscopics was “are they a worthy replacement for the Baader Genuine Orthoscopics ?”. From my experience with them I feel the answer is a resounding “Yes”. If you like the Baader Genuine Orthos, you will like the Hutech orthos. In the dark, with the exception of the 6 and 18mm focal lengths, you wont be able to tell them apart in fact !

The different body length and focus position of the 6 and 18mm Hutech’s are the only way they differ from their BGO equivalents. Optically they are every bit as good.

The Baader Classic Orthoscopics are excellent as well though. They cost significantly less than the Hutech’s but perform to very much the same standard across much of their slightly larger field of view. Their range of focal lengths is limited to just 3 which could limit their appeal with some I guess but I reckon they probably provide the best views, in terms of pure optical quality, that can be had from an eyepiece which costs less than £50 new.

So the past year has seen the demise of two excellent ranges of orthoscopics in the Baader Genuine Ortho and the less expensive Circle-T “volcano top” orthos followed by the emergence of their, in my opinion, worthy replacements in the Astro Hutech and Baader Classic Orthoscopics.

Many thanks to First Light Optics for the loan of the Baader and Astro Hutech Orthos

And now a few pictures:

[Naemeth]

The resounding thought I get from reading that thread is: BGO or Hutech Orthoscopics, buy whichever is cheapest because they are the same quality .

Excellent review John and really helpful . Have you any TV Plössls to test these against before you send them back?

[John]

The resounding thought I get from reading that thread is: BGO or Hutech Orthoscopics, buy whichever is cheapest because they are the same quality .

Excellent review John and really helpful . Have you any TV Plössls to test these against before you send them back?

Thanks Jonathan

I have an 8mm TV plossl at the moment but I've not done much in the way of comparison with the orthos so far which is why I omitted it from the report. I've got the scope cooling at the moment so I'll try the TV 8 PL and the 7 & 9mm orthos on Saturn later and report back

[Naemeth]

Thanks John, look forward to hearing how it compares .

[Stargazer_00]

Great write up John, thanks. I think this should help many people who have been wanting after BGOs to find something of the same performance which is widely available. And it's also a great prop for the BCO. Clearly if you're going to spend £90 on a 40 degree eyepiece you want stellar performance and it seems that the HuTech delivers that.

The king is dead, long live the king!

[Qualia]

Fantastic report, John and thank you for putting this together. I'm quite partial to the BGO's and great to see the Hutechs (and BCOs) getting such an outstanding report.

[Damo636]

Brilliant report John, thanks for taking the time to write it up.

[alan potts]

An excellent report John. I think I may well have just written to me they are the same and any difference could be the fact I got smacked in the eye by a lump of wood. It has turned out very much as we all thought it would then after all. It says a lot about you that you covered it to the extremes that you did when I believe even from the start you were expecting this outcome, again well done for seeing it through. Alan

[faulksy]

great report john, as said glad the new orthos are equal to the bgo,s. if you would of said you didnt have the 9 and 12.5 bgo,s you could of loaned mine for the test. ill say it again though great report john

[John]

Thanks folks - hope you enjoyed the read

Thanks John, look forward to hearing how it compares .

I had a go at Saturn with the Hutech 7 and 9mm orthos and the TV 8mm plossl in the 12" dob for an hour or so last night. The seeing was a bit jittery so the lower magnifications showed a crisper image but the plossl seemed equal to the orthos in what it showed despite perhaps just a touch more light scatter. My "barometers" of Enceladus and the Crepe Ring were still clearly visible with the plossl but It has a slightly different "feel" about it than the orthos. Probably the rather stiff rubber eye cup contributes to that as well as the obvious larger field of view and a focus point which is much further out than the orthos. The TV plossls are the best plossls I've used though, no doubt about it, though the 8mm is as short as I'd want to go with the design - Al Nagler was right to stop there !

I also did some comparing of the plossl with my 8mm Ethos on Saturn and M13. This confirmed my feelings that the TV plossls can be as good as an Ethos albeit across half as big field of view. M13 virtually filled the FoV @ 199x with the plossl (a field packed with stars ) while the Ethos set the cluster against plenty of black space.

[E621Keith]

John. Thanks for the review. I guess it confirms the Hutech and the BGO did came out of the same factory.

[Naemeth]

Thanks folks - hope you enjoyed the read

I had a go at Saturn with the Hutech 7 and 9mm orthos and the TV 8mm plossl in the 12" dob for an hour or so last night. The seeing was a bit jittery so the lower magnifications showed a crisper image but the plossl seemed equal to the orthos in what it showed despite perhaps just a touch more light scatter. My "barometers" of Enceladus and the Crepe Ring were still clearly visible with the plossl but It has a slightly different "feel" about it than the orthos. Probably the rather stiff rubber eye cup contributes to that as well as the obvious larger field of view and a focus point which is much further out than the orthos. The TV plossls are the best plossls I've used though, no doubt about it, though the 8mm is as short as I'd want to go with the design - Al Nagler was right to stop there !

I also did some comparing of the plossl with my 8mm Ethos on Saturn and M13. This confirmed my feelings that the TV plossls can be as good as an Ethos albeit across half as big field of view. M13 virtually filled the FoV @ 199x with the plossl (a field packed with stars ) while the Ethos set the cluster against plenty of black space.

Thanks John, given your findings, do you think it would be wise to have the 8mm TV Plössl and the 7 / 9mm Hutech's, depending on the target?

[John]

Thanks John, given your findings, do you think it would be wise to have the 8mm TV Plössl and the 7 / 9mm Hutech's, depending on the target?

I honestly can't answer that one Jonathan. I guess if you have other orthos then it might make sense to stick with orthos as they will be close to par-focal which is nice to have as it saves a lot of messing with the focuser at high power. The TV plossl has a rubber eye cup which can help keep stray light from the eye lens but it does get in the way slightly of seeing the full field of view. You can fold it down of course. It might just come down to ergonomics and which type you prefer the feel of using.

Sorry to sit on the fence !

[Naemeth]

I honestly can't answer that one Jonathan. I guess if you have other orthos then it might make sense to stick with orthos as they will be close to par-focal which is nice to have as it saves a lot of messing with the focuser at high power. The TV plossl has a rubber eye cup which can help keep stray light from the eye lens but it does get in the way slightly of seeing the full field of view. You can fold it down of course. It might just come down to egronomics and which type you prefer the feel of using.

Sorry to sit on the fence !

That's okay . I don't have other orthos at the moment (just planning for them!), and the Vixen LVs seem to need a lot of out focus, so in that regard they would be similar to the plössl.

[crazyjedi]

Good review John (again)- There is quite a difference between short FL orthos and plossls to my eye. plossls just can't compete at short FL's which is why I like ortho's so much.

[majapala]

Thanks again John. I opted for the 18mm BCO as a medium power eyepiece for my scope following your earlier report, which proved reliable and accurate as I use it all the time.

[crazyjedi]

Thanks again John. I opted for the 18mm BCO as a medium power eyepiece for my scope following your earlier report, which proved reliable and accurate as I use it all the time.

My 18mm BGO is an oft used EP that is exceedingly useful and pin sharp. Very handy for DSO's so I know exactly what you mean.

[great_bear]

While the 5, 7, 9, and 12.5 Hutech Orthos look identical to the Baader GO equivalents, the 18 and 6mm Hutech optics are housed in shorter bodies. In use this means that they seem to reach focus around 8mm further out from the focus position of the other Hutechs and the BGO’s. For some reason the Hutech 6mm Ortho does not have the circular micro ridges surrounding the eye lens that the other models in the range and the Baader GO’s use.

This sounds suspicious to me. It doesn't make sense for the 18mm and 6mm to not be parfocal with the rest of the range and for *both* to be missing the characteristic circular ridges around the top. I suspect that the factory did not have barrels available for the 6mm and 18mm ones, and so "borrowed" the Fujiyama-style barrels in order to get the Hutech range completed.

Just my idle speculation, of course

[John]

This sounds suspicious to me. It doesn't make sense for the 18mm and 6mm to not be parfocal with the rest of the range and for *both* to be missing the characteristic circular ridges around the top. I suspect that the factory did not have barrels available for the 6mm and 18mm ones, and so "borrowed" the Fujiyama-style barrels in order to get the Hutech range completed.

Just my idle speculation, of course

You could be right. They could all be made in the same factory but with differing body styles.

Personally I prefer the shorter body format of the 6 and 18mm Astro Hutech's simply because the focal plane in those is closer to my other eyepieces.

[great_bear]

You could be right. They could all be made in the same factory but with differing body styles.

Ah, well we know that to be the case (or at least inasmuch as it's possible to "know" anything in the curiously secretive world of eyepiece production)

• There is only one factory in Japan producing orthos (source: Jay Seyfried / University Optics)
  
• That factory is Masuyama (source: Markus Ludes / APM)
  

[John]

Ah, well we know that to be the case (or at least inasmuch as it's possible to "know" anything in the curiously secretive world of eyepiece production)

• There is only one factory in Japan producing orthos (source: Jay Seyfried / University Optics)
  
• That factory is Masuyama (source: Markus Ludes / APM)
  

Were they also producing the Baader Genine Orthos and the University Optics HD orthos originally then ?

If so, I wonder what really caused the hiatus in production ?

I always thought there what you might call "family resemblances" between the Baader GO's and the Celestron Ulitimas / Orion Ultrascopics which I believe were Masuyama made.

UO seems about to introduce a range that looks identical to the Fujiyama orthos. USA astronomers seem happy that the chrome barrel undercuts that the former range of HD orthos had seem to have been dropped on these new ones.

Regardless of the above, there seems to be a decent supply again of good quality abbe orthoscopics, for astronomers who like to use them

[great_bear]

Were they also producing the Baader Genine Orthos and the University Optics HD orthos originally then ?

I've seen nothing written to confirm it, but I'd think it a safe bet since:

• Baader's long-standing Eudiascopic eyepieces are generally considered to be "of Masuyama design"
  (suggesting a long-standing partnership between Baader and Masuyama)
  
• The Eudiascopic's distinctive barrels bear a striking resemblance to Fujiyama Orthoscopic barrels
  

As always, eyepiece lineage seems a matter of detective work and speculation.

By the way, did you check out the 25mm Hutech as part of your review? I ask because it too, appears to have a Fujiyama-style barrel like the 6mm and 18mm and might be parfocal with them.

[John]

....By the way, did you check out the 25mm Hutech as part of your review? I ask because it too, appears to have a Fujiyama-style barrel like the 6mm and 18mm and might be parfocal with them.....

Not as yet. The 25mm had not arrived at FLO when they sent the others out. I hope to give one a try soon though