Delos 14mm and Meade's 14mm S Plossl.

[alan potts]

Little and Large of the 14mm eyepiece wide field world.

Firstly allow me to thank Dani in Sofia for the loan of the 14mm Super Plossl eyepiece.

14mm Meade Series 5000 Super Plossl in bed with Televue’s 14mm Delos

I can’t remember when I started this test but it could have been before men walked on the Moon, the weather has been so poor that I have had to reduce the amount of time I spent comparing these two though I still managed over 10 hours. I have also had two other eyepieces on loan from the same person so time has been split into a number of directions.

Before we move on to the starter course I wish to tell myself off for being selfish. I was watching the television news and saw about 2 feet of the top of the roof of someone’s house sticking out of flood waters in the North of Bulgaria near the River Danube and I have the unmitigated audacity to complain about clear skies.

Meade 14mm Super Plossl,

This comes from a range that has now been discontinued but there were 7 different focal lengths within the full set all offering a 60 degree field of view and it was my first set of eyepieces apart from the longest one, the 40mm. Being a variation on the Plossl design even with an extra element they could not be called large by today’s standards. The eyepiece weighs in at around 90 grams as far as I can tell but being this light the scales may well be reading incorrectly. All of Meade’s eyepieces in the three ranges that make up the  Series 5000 collection come in a very strong box which is flocked on the inside and well fit for purpose. Reading the advertising Meade claim this range is tack sharp, now where have I heard that before, and offers a 40% improvement in corrections for chromatic aberration and edge distortion over traditional Plossl eyepieces. We will see if I agree with that at the end. Eye relief will be too tight for people that have to wear glasses to observe with only 10.4mm quoted in the specification but the construction allows for a twist up eye-guard should you require it and I would have to say the whole thing feels very positive and well made. The thing that I recall the most from owning most of this range was the shock when I saw ‘China’ on the barrels, it looked such nice quality and really surprised me how the manufacturing over there had come on in leaps and bounds.

Televue’s 14mm Delos,

The Delos range has been on the market for some time now and is widely accepted as a market leader in the 70 degree super wide field of view area, the range offering a slightly larger 72 degree field. All larger Televue eyepieces come with very much the same caps and as far as I see, much the same boxes and packing, everything is well done and fit for purposes without being over the top. The 14mm has been with me now just over a year and has visited a few counties starting off in Northern Ireland where it belonged to site member Damo. It weighs in at about 390 grams which is just over 4 times more than the Meade, looks 4 times bigger and probably cost about the same factor more as well. The eyepiece also has the raise twist and lock eye-guard which works very well indeed and is my favourite out of the T4 Nagler and Radian ranges that have variation of this. It is a very well made eyepiece as you would expect that just exudes quality.

Scopes,

LX 12 inch F 10,  190mm Mak/Newtonian.

Targets,

Moon

Saturn,

Mars,

The double double

M24

The 12 inch Meade has a focal length of 3048mm so this is going to be a fairly high power of X217, so this is getting close to what most of us can use on a reasonable night and may well even exceed it. Personally I do not go above this too often and most of the time use 12mm as my maximum focal length on this scope but the Delos 14mm was purchased solely with this telescope in mind.

Moon.

I always like the Moon from the thinnest sliver visible just after the setting Sun to just over first quarter where just to complicate matters half of the Moon is illuminated. I am sure I would love the rising Moon in the morning as well but the bed anchor is just too heavy to move these days.

I was able to get on to the Moon when it was only two days old and observed it in a bright sky which never really got dark before a walnut tree got in the way and spoilt the party. The craters Legendre, Adams and Behaim were very nice to see, I believe for the first time though I have viewed them after the full Moon which gives you a completely different view of them. Later in the cycle I was able to pick up some observations around the crater Hercules and all his alphabetic followers and Atlas, there was some stunning detail on show here.

In the F 10 scope the Meade 14mm was delivering a sharp view with very good contrast when you consider it was not even fully dark on all occasions but the magnification darkened the sky when compared to what the eye was seeing unaided. The conditions on both nights of two day Moon which were in fact two months apart were not what I would call ideal but it was the same for both oculars so in my books a fair test.

There is a case to made for the very edge of the Delos being sharper but over all there was not as much in this as I had first expected, at this time of the year I always have heat to combat and viewing the young Moon really is not giving any time for the temperature to dissipate. This reinforced the age old expression that a slow scope is a leveler and at F10 there was not much that could be said against the Meade eyepiece using the Moon as a target, however ‘tack sharp’ for the Meade, on axis most certainly at the very edge, not for me.

Saturn

Oddly as I did the last night of tests a few days ago on Saturn it is starting to slip into the twilight sky and will not be long before we loose it in the glow of the Sun, when I started I was having to wait up for it to get high enough in the sky. On axis again there was little in the way of a difference between the two eyepieces though I had the feeling that the Delos was a little whiter and that Cassini was more crisp more of the time, again conditions were not as good as I would have liked on the three nights. I would say that the moons of Saturn were a little easier to see with the Televue but it is a much newer design with more up to date coatings and a premium price tag so maybe it should be expected. The slight edge softness of the Super Plossl was highlighted by using The Cassini division, this was very hard to make out when at the extremities where as with the Delos it really did not seem to make any difference where you placed it. There is no doubt that this would be a useful attribute when using a Dobsonian for planetary viewing but on a guided scope you could argue that it is not really a problem, I would agree with this myself.

Saturn was the first target that I viewed in this test and one thing that came to surface very early on was that barrel of the Meade seemed to be smaller than that of the Televue and different to what recall my own 14mm Super Plossl being, it really could be rattled around in the 1.25 inch reducer where as the Televue just fitted as it should. In real terms there is probably very little in it, maybe half a millimeter but it seems more and I have not seen this before on the Meade Series 5000 ranges and I have own a good many of them.

Mars,

This planet is way passed its best now and is getting difficult for me to see at all as a walnut tree has a say in the matter. I would also suggest that the magnification (X217) was not enough for this target but on some mainly smaller scopes this about your top power. I was able to see some detail with both eyepieces on a night of good seeing without it being good enough to start telephoning people and telling them about it. One thing that struck me how much smaller Mars was now compared to back in April when it was close to opposition. The Delos here just handled things better with everything just being that bit more punchy. Something rather funny happened a few nights ago which nearly gave me a heart attack, I have this, scope in an observatory now and I left the door ajar, a stray cat poked it's head around the door and gave out a load meow, I think it best that I do not write what I called it.

The Double Double,

Always a must see target every summer so why not include it on the test, it is something that many can empathise with and is a love telescopic object. Both eyepieces had no trouble splitting the stars as you would expect, not really much of a test on a 12 inch scope.

It was only when I started moving the doubles about in the field of view though that I was able to see some differences. Using the Meade 14mm I was unable to split pairs all of the time when placing them at the very edge where with the Delos again there was no trouble. There was also some evidence of aberrations creeping in but only very minor and only at the extremes As far as I can see the star disc in the Televue eyepiece is just as clean at the edge as it is in the centre, I cannot see any aberrations at all but Lyra is overhead so very well placed for the cleanest view and this is what I would expect.

Sky-Watcher 190mm Mak/Newtonian. F 5.26

I think this is my favourite scope which is strange as it is really aimed at the astro photographer but for me it gives close to APO scope star discs and it is a very flexible and good quality piece of equipment. It is also the fastest scope I have, though it is no Usain Bolt it is quick enough to weed out problems on eyepieces

On the 190mm the two eyepieces were giving a moderate power of X71 not the sort of power that you would use for the Moon and planets but we will have a look in any case.

Moon,

Viewing the Moon on this power means that we can fit the whole surface in even with the 60 degree field and the first thing that jumped out at me was the chromatic aberration at the limb of the Moon when placed anywhere near the edge of field from the Meade eyepiece, ‘tack sharp’ I think not. The on-axis view was still holding up well but things were going down hill fast as you moved outwards towards the edge. The Delos just got on with it and was not troubled in any way shape or form as far as I could see. I was using the craters Maurolycus and Cuvier on a six day Moon and bearing in mind the power was not mind blowing the detail that could be seen with the Televue was impressive to say the least.

Saturn.

Now I would never use this power to study the planet but you can tell a lot about an eyepiece when viewing a disc of another world as opposed to a point source of light from a star. Saturn was small in the middle of the Meade and it was pretty sharp when in the centre but it was not far from the centre when the wheels came off. I would have to say at the edge, and by this I mean the last 10% of the field you could not really see it as Saturn, it was just an elliptical blob, this was a combination of aberrations and probably astigmatism as well. If this was a 40% improvement over traditional Plossl eyepieces I was rather pleased I do not own any as what I was seeing was poor at best. I do not see it was anything to do with either scope or conditions as the Delos was as good as you would expect, I could even see the Cassini Division at the edge of field, this is surely why these eyepieces are becoming so popular.

M24,

Messier 24 is a large open cluster which may well be fairly low down from England but is a sort of X71 power cluster which was why I selected it. It will fill the field of view on the Delos eyepiece and there are a good few brighter stars within it which will help detect any problems. As expected the Televue was on the money which lets face it should be for the outlay, I was unable to see any defects in the view. The 14mm Super Plossl was not looking so super, I could see astigmatism in the outer stars looking like little comets and I knew it could not be coma, the centre though was again sharp. This is not a problem for me if I were using this in a fast driven scope to view a planet, however if you wanted the same eyepiece to look at something like M45 then the short comings would be there to see.

Epsilon Lyra the double double.

Splitting this double below X100 is something I have done before with this scope so I thought why not try, though X71 is lower than I managed before with this scope. The Delos gave the best view where I could see it was a double star on both components but I would not claim that I could see a split. The Meade did not give as clean a view as the Delos and to say it could be seen as a double would be stretching the truth somewhat.

Conclusion.

These two eyepieces seem to be tied as a four time table exercise, 4 times the weight, 4 times the size and 4 times the cost. The two scopes used handled things in completely different ways, the slower F10 scope painted a not too different picture from each other and the cheaper Meade 14mm would be a fine choice in a slower scope.

However when the Mak/Newtonian was used, which at F5.26 is not the fastest on earth, I saw a different story unfold. I could not recommend the use of the Super Plossl in a scope this fast, I am sure many would be disappointed with what they saw, I was. The sad thing is I did not have this scope when I had my own 14mm Meade eyepiece so I cannot say if this is the norm which would have been nice, even if it was trusting to memory. The clear winner has to be the Delos 14mm which just handled everything better particularly in the faster scope where it was more noticeable. But to be fair if you have a F10 SC type of scope or slower Maksutov and are happy with the smaller field of view then this Meade packs a punch for under 50 pounds on the secondhand market, but if you use a fast Dobsonian telescope you would do better to look elsewhere.

Clear skies everyone,

Alan. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report as ever. I have had Plossls in fairly fast scopes, and the edge problems noted in the F/5.26 scope do not sound like a 40% improvement over the Plossl design to me, I must say.

[alan potts]

Michael,

I only had one other Plossl eyepiece and that was the 26mm Series 4000 Meade which I sent to a young astonomer on site called Ant to help him on his way. This too was pretty good at F10 but fairly horrible at F5.26 and not very clever at F7.

I am hoping my Televue Plossls will be better when I get them.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Michael,

I only had one other Plossl eyepiece and that was the 26mm Series 4000 Meade which I sent to a young astonomer on site called Ant to help him on his way. This too was pretty good at F10 but fairly horrible at F5.26 and not very clever at F7.

I am hoping my Televue Plossls will be better when I get them.

It will be. I should have another look at that 20mm Plossl the kids have in their little Dob, just to check. My 26mm Vixen/Celestron Plossl was pretty good, but I mainly used it at F/10, so not much of a test

[avtaram]

Very informative report Alan, I guess I will hang on to my 14mm Delos and not bother replacing it with a14mm Meade.

Avtar

[John]

Excellent report again Alan

Letting Saturn drift right to the field stop and seeing if and how the resolution and contrast changes is a great test I think. Like the Delos, the features stay really well defined "out to the edge" with the Ethos too (as you know) and, as my scopes are alt-az mounted and un-driven, this is a really nice attribute and a tough act for other eyepieces to follow 

The "is it 4x better ?" question is always a difficult one to answer - my answer is usually "No, but I want one anyway"

[Damo636]

Another enjoyable read Alan, thanks for sharing. I wonder how the Meade 5000 HD-60 would fare against the Delos? I may be wrong, but I think they replaced the 5000 series plossl & reports have them comparing well with Radians. Just some food for thought for a future review perhaps!

[YKSE]

Another enjoyable review, Alan, thanks for the efforts.

What I've understand is that Meade 5000 Super plössl is pseudo-Masuyama design, where the typical ones like Takahasi LE, Baader Eudiascopic, Parks Gold, have only 52 degrees FOV. By extending FOV to 60 degrees (most like having 14.6mm field stop instead of 12.7mm), the Meade has just added some 20% unsharp FOV, if Meade hasn't done any major improvement in lens for these EPs, i.e. Consider the costs of these EPs comparing to the others of similar design, any improvement is actually in qeustion.

This, however, doesn't affect your conclusion that Delos are super EPs, which has been confirmed many times by various reviews.

[alan potts]

Just a little something extra which I forgot to put in the review.

After the problems that came Meades way and this and other S 5000 ranges from JOC vanished, Bresser started to market the 60 degree FOV Plossl in 5.5mm, 9mm, 14mm, 20mm, 26mm, 32mm and 40mm, the exact same foccal lengths that Meade had in the S Plossl range, now I wonder if they are the same?

Alan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Quite likely. Bresser has been marketing a lot of rebranded Meade stuff (the SA Barlows are just Meade S5K TeleXtenders, after all)

[alan potts]

The Tele-extenders are very good Michael, there was a good deal of stuff as you say that ended up going to Bresser and I believe ExSc, APO scopes and the like. I wonder if Meade will recover from their problems, after all thay did make large in-roads into the astronomy market place with some fine kit over the years but the last few years have been just doom and gloom.

I wonder who makes Meades gear now as the JOC connection seems to have been cut off, their eyepieces are not the same as they once were, take the UWA range now 5.5mm, 8.8mm, 14mm, and 20mm. The other two you see, 24mm and 30mm are just old stocks. The new ones look almost the same but they are not, I do not think thay perform as well either from what I have seen.

Alan