0.965" ep's are old hat?

[Dude_with_the_tube]

all good things end at some point.i think 2011-12 wasnt the best years for eye pieces.tsunami ended BGos on 2011,Tani-San retired 2012 and the classic Circle T production ended.On a good note,University Optics HD`s are still in production and can still be purchased from them direct.Currently only 2 or 3 focal length are available,but i had email from them confirming that all other focal length will be available with 9 and 12.5 starting to be available at the end of the summer and 18mm towards autumn.things doesnt look that bad and UO HD`s are on the same level as BGo`s what are becoming a real issue to find these days.

John:

As we so often say with eyepiece selection, much is down to personal preference and "Your Mileage May Vary" as the saying goes, and it quite probably will  

Cant agree more on that.

P.S.Like the pic of your UO Abbes.

[alan potts]

A very interesting read about the older eyepieces that with luck we can still get hold of, the good thing is, every astronomer I have ever met looks after their gear so hopefully these will be around for years to come. As Dude WTT pointed out I am in the case of Televue group and that is itself is not a bad place to be but older eyepieces are very rare here, only the 3.8mm Pentax and that is owned by a Director of a professional observatory, so he knows his stuff so to speak.

I think If I were living in the UK I would try to find a few of these older quality offerings as they were maybe made to higher standards but for the moment a few BGO's is my only visit into the past and that is not a very distant one. The XO is still a dream that one day may come true but I will have to wait. The one thing I always wonder is why when there is clearly an interest in orthoscopic eyepieces is it that Televue do not enter the playing field, I am sure they would do a dam good job and only enhance their reputation.

Alan

[John]

.... The one thing I always wonder is why when there is clearly an interest in orthoscopic eyepieces is it that Televue do not enter the playing field, I am sure they would do a dam good job and only enhance their reputation.

Alan

When Al Nagler is asked about this, which he is quite frequently, his reply is "well we have our plossls". His belief is that a well constructed plossl is at least as good, if not a little better than an ortho.

I don't think everyone agrees with him on this but I guess it's his company and the product lines are his call 

Eyepieces can be orthoscopic without following the traditional 3+1 optical design anyway - it's a set of characteristics rather than an optical design. Abbe Orthoscopic however is a prescribed design.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

i will be the one who disagrees with his statement of plossls being at least as good if not better.I havent seen so far any plossl being better then ortho unless someone proves that i am wrong.There are sharp view plossls out there,but they never have beaten a proper ortho.

Still,TV plossls are off very good quality and great bang for your money if you dont need UWA range and orthos are too narrow.if i had to ditch orthos out of my case,TV plossls or old meade/vixen/celestron plossls would be my pick.

But i would also love to see if mr Al Nagler would overcome his view on this and try and produce a series of pure orthos.

[YKSE]

.I havent seen so far any plossl being better then ortho unless someone proves that i am wrong.

Is it possible that's because you've not yet looked through a good authentic plössl which is 2-2 asymmetric arrangement? To my limited knowledge, all the nowdays plössls are symmetric arrangement without any high index glass. Chris Lord's comparision maybe not 100% up-to-date, yet nottoo far from truth either.

http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/HOMEPAGE/PageMill_Resources/Comparison%20test%20of%20TVPlossl%20vs%20Brandon.pdf