Delite - new Televue 62 deg 7mm, 11mm, 18.2mm

[John]

SCS Astro are listing the DeLites at £225 + £5 delivery:

http://www.scsastro.co.uk/catalogue/tele-vue-delite-eyepieces.htm

I still reckon they will find their way down to around £180-£200 when the full range is available.

[Stu]

SCS Astro are listing the DeLites at £225 + £5 delivery:

http://www.scsastro.co.uk/catalogue/tele-vue-delite-eyepieces.htm

I still reckon they will find their way down to around £180-£200 when the full range is available.

I think they do need to be at or below £200 to make any sense vs Delos

[John]

I think they do need to be at or below £200 to make any sense vs Delos

I tend to agree, unless they prove to be absolutely killer eyepieces exceeding the Delos and pushing into Zeiss ZAO / TMB Supermono / Pentax XO quality but with 20mm of eye relief and 60 degree fields.

With ZAO's out of production, Pentax XO's rarer than hens teeth and TMB Supermono's going for around £350 apiece I think there is perhaps a niche for a superlative planetary / lunar / binoviewer friendly eyepiece that is readily available, albeit not exactly cheap.

Still, we will see when units are actually out there being used.

[alan potts]

John,

If it ticks all those boxes I think they will sell very well indeed, a set would be coming this way for sure. However as much as would really like this I think reality may fall somewhat short for this mark.

Alan

[russ.will]

I think there is perhaps a niche for a superlative planetary / lunar / binoviewer friendly eyepiece that is readily available, albeit not exactly cheap.

I think that is very much the nail, the head of which, may be hit.

If TV deliver Delos+ levels of sharpness, with an orthoscopic level of correction made easier by the narrower AFOV, plus minimal spherical aberration of the exit pupil, again made easier by the reduced AFOV and further reduced light scatter, then these could become the planetary EP par excellence. I, for one (possibly because of my dual white light solar demands) never found an easy, relaxing balance of eye position with Delos. With ER to spare, it should have been easy, but at the point the whole AFOV was visible, I was into black-out/kidney bean territiory, particularly in solar mode. They were oh-so-close in every other regard, but I'm not going to sit with my head in a vice.

Delite has the potential to side-step this and with my burgeoning interest in bino-viewing, they've certainly got my interest.

Now - The elephant in the room.

IF TV can do 100deg with a consistent 15mm of ER (3.7 to 21mm FL) and both 70 & 62deg EPs with 20mm of ER (3.5-18.2mm FL) then it kind of looks obvious that Naglers (especially T6) with a highly variable 12-17mm of ER over a similar FL range, are looking ripe for an overhaul.....

Russell

[alan potts]

Does anyone think there will be more in the range? After all the Delos range only had 3 to start I believe, I bought the 10mm and the 6mm, I think the other was 17.3mm.

What other F/L's would you like to see?

Alan

[jabeoo1]

Does anyone think there will be more in the range? 

Alan

There should be !  On the TV site it states:   'Available in 18.2, 11, and 7mm focal lengths initially'.  

[DRT]

I just noticed these last night and felt so faint I had to go to bed immediately

I am one Delos away from what I seriously believed was a completed set of TV eyepieces and then they go and do this - it's a conspiracy!

The price looks quite eye-watering when you compare it to the ES 68° range.

Which other ranges are these competing against?

[russ.will]

I think the most obvious specification and price comparison is to be drawn with the Vixen LVWs, although they do cover a larger FL range. That said, near SWA AFOV, check. 20mm ER, check. Circa £200 check.

To be fair to the ES68 (and Meade/Maxvision SWA derivatives thereof) I don't think they really are competition. For starters, the ES68s only go up from 16mm, whilst the Delite only go down from (the slightly worrying) 18.2mm and then there's the whole eye relief thing. Am I the only one thinking that we may have another Delos situation, where the EP with the weird FL will be as far as that particular range will push in that direction? I say worried, but I suspect this range has more of a planetary focus and the additions, when they appear, will be shorter FLs.

Panoptic has the longer FL covered until they re-vamp them. I think the only question is whether they re-vamp Panoptic or Naglers next. My money is on Nagler.

Russell

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

One thing they might be gunning for is closing some gaps in their planetary range. The 7mm and 11mm fill gap between the 6mm and 8mm Delos, and 10mm and 12mm respectively. I would bet there will be a 9 and 13mm. If these are parfocal with the Delos, they would make a killer planetary collection. As it is, I don't use the 8mm Delos between my XW10 and XW7 as much as I did the XF8.5, due to parfocality issues. I don't like switching to the Delos range without some 7mm gap filler (I use 7mm a lot). The Delites might get me back into the TV fold in the planetary range

[russ.will]

The 17.3mm delos was a long way from parfocal with it's sibblings. I agree that parfocal is nice and especially so if you're binoviewing, but if TV are targeting gaps in Delos with Delite, then they've forgotten about scope balance somewhere along the way! However, they may have noted how some green and black owners seem to 'need' something in their EP case at every single millimetre between 3 and 30, so it's canny spacing.

Russell

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I do not mind lack of parfocality at the long end, but at high magnification I frequently switch EPs as seeing allows, so there I really appreciate it. Close spacing of focal lengths is also needed more at those short focal lengths.

[DRT]

Close spacing of focal lengths is also needed more at those short focal lengths.

Excellent. We have now established a "need" to own at least the 7mm DeLite and perhaps also the 11mm. Having checked my case I can confirm that I own neither, nor do I own anything in-between 17mm and 21mm so a pattern seems to be emerging

I need a bigger case...

[damnut]

@DRT ----Let Me know when you are posting your cast-offs  ...

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

@DRT ----Let Me know when you are posting your cast-offs  ...

Cast-offs? He just wants MORE EPs.

[russ.will]

I do not mind lack of parfocality at the long end, but at high magnification I frequently switch EPs as seeing allows, so there I really appreciate it. Close spacing of focal lengths is also needed more at those short focal lengths.

100% agreed, but we've all seen people say they *need* something to fill in a gap between 16 & 18mm etc. Okay, in some SCTs that is a planetary EP - so my point is certainly moot in that circumstance where you pushing atmospheric limits - but if a person is filling their boots with every single BST (as an example) for use in a typical 8-12" SW Dob, I'd suggest the money would be better spent on a spread of four well chosen, more capable EPs.

Maybe  I'm just not quite the EP addict I thought I was, but as I'm starting to concentrate on and enjoy purely planetary nights with the binoviewer more and more, I guess such minutiae will become increasingly important.

It's a bit off topic, but; Based purely on the Nagler 3-6mm I stupidly sold, I'm oft left wondering why such short planetary zooms aren't more prevalent? I loved the seamless tweaking, that let you ultra fine tune magnification to viewing conditions. In retrospect, it seems to make a case full of Plossls or Orthos look expensive and frankly, inconvenient when ER was taken into account. I think that may be the first EP I buy twice.

Russell

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

There used to be a Speers-WALER 5-8mm zoom. Not sure where that went (or how good it was).

[alan potts]

It's a bit off topic, but; Based purely on the Nagler 3-6mm I stupidly sold, I'm oft left wondering why such short planetary zooms aren't more prevalent? I loved the seamless tweaking, that let you ultra fine tune magnification to viewing conditions. In retrospect, it seems to make a case full of Plossls or Orthos look expensive and frankly, inconvenient when ER was taken into account. I think that may be the first EP I buy twice.

Russell

Yes, I have often wondered the excat same thing. The other company that had a  good one 5mm-8mm and 82 degrees field was Antares but that seems to have gone now, as Michael said, they also did another 8.5mm to 12mm, both could also be lowered with an extension sleeve by 1mm. I used the Nagler zoom last night, it's really almost as good as Delos and Radian but without the wide field. On a driven scope it is really all you need, which I guess is why they get snapped up.

Going back to close grouping at the short end of a telescope's planetary range, I agree you do need closer bunching, my hawl of scopes vari from 3 meters to 500mm. The trouble is when you buy additional scopes the same applies at least I know now why I have 4 cases of eyepieces now with De-lite, I may need to start case number 5.

Alan

[John]

Apart from the Nagler zooms and the Speers-Waler I can't recall any "native" short focal length zooms. With barlows nicely matched to the Baader the Leica zooms they in effect become this sort of thing and with decently wide fields of view albeit containing a lot of glass. Not that the latter seems to make too much difference these days.

The Nagler 3-6 and 2-4 just use 5 lens elements I believe - a relatively simple design for Tele Vue. I seem to have owned 3 of the 3-6 ones over the years but I never quite took to them. Maybe I'll have to give a 4th a try ! 

[Stu]

I use a Nag 3 to 6 zoom in my smaller scopes (mainly for balance reasons) and for travel. The Leica ASPH/VIP Barlow combination is the one I use most often in larger scopes ie from 4" up

Whilst the edge performance is not as good as nags/Delos etc, I mainly keep planets towards the centre of the fov so it's no problem for me.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The only zoom I have is the WO 7.5-22.5 Zoom II. Handy allrounder for solar, and could be useful for travel. Insufficient eye relief has alwas kept me away from most other zooms

[John]

....Whilst the edge performance is not as good as nags/Delos etc, I mainly keep planets towards the centre of the fov so it's no problem for me.

I wonder if a slightly stopped down version of the Leica Zoom might be a truly great astro eyepiece ?. The above plus some edge of field brightening are about the only issues that I ever hear of with the eyepiece so if they could be eliminated in all scope types by, say, a 15% reduction in AFoV and slightly lower price they might just become "the" eyepiece to have, bar none ?

Might dent the forthcoming TV DeLite sales too !

I'll have to drop a line to Markus Ludes at APM and see what he thinks.

[alan potts]

The only thing that really put me off was the 1000 euro price tag, though one has to expect anything with the name of Leica on is never going to be free with Conrflakes, great glass but I never liked their cameras.

Alan

[YKSE]

Alan,

I think it is 800€, and it replaces 4 Delos (10mm, 12, 14, 17.3mm), also parfocal and with zoom ability, together with a good 2x barlow or PM, it replaces all Delos. To me, it is much more cost efficient than buying all Delos, unless one feels like to look through many eyepieces.

[alan potts]

Yong,

I say this as I have read this many times written by people far more knowledgeable than me, No zoom will ever better a quality fixed focal length lens, this is true of camera equipment and I would have thought true of eyepieces. The Leica I am sure is an exception eyepiece but for out and out performance the Delos will win I am sure. Though I am sure we are not talking massive differences. Sounds a great eyepiece but I am  keeping the Delos range.

Without doubt though I would have bought the one on site had I had enough in the bank.

Alan