OCD or simply in love with nice glass

[bomberbaz]

Ok so whats my problem! Well after a recent change of scope; F4.9 12" to a now F4.7 10" I have suddenly found huge holes in my collection of glass that previously never existed either in the box and certainly not in my mind and which I am determined to plug.

After a recent operation gave me a lot of fre time whilst recovering, I made a spreadsheet of my existing eyepieces covering all the sizes, TFOV and exit pupil and argued with myself (quite successfully too) that there were spaces to fill and why I needed more glass. It was for reasons of exit pupil, or higher up the scale magnification or because of FOV. I have managed to convince myself that a ES 20mm 68 (barlowing to 10mm) and a ES 6.7mm 82 is needed to fill these gaps.

On the flip side I tried to convince myself to sell some of the obvious near double ups (Vixen 18mm & 15mm) but again successfully argued good reason to keep them for reasons of they won't fetch that much, they are light weight and easy/comfortable to use and so do leave a space if taken out. There is also the 22mm SWA which could go, especially if I get the ES 20mm but I do like the SWA so much I cn't bear to sell it on.Am I soon to need another case?         The only one I have decided to definately let go was the Moonfish due to excessive (6.6mm) exit pupil.

So what is the problem, where has all this come from. Am I getting a glass fetish / OCD condition of some sorts or am I simply morphing into a standard astronomer at last 

[PhotoGav]

Sorry, but I simply can't see the problem that worries you. The above is a clear, concise and most sensible approach to the honorable pursuit of the night skies. Indeed, your wish list is somewhat miserly... 

Hope you're fully recovered from the op.

[John]

I've found that I can live quite happilly with reasonable "holes" in my eyepiece focal lengths in the low and medium power areas but I do like to "pack em in" in the higher powers to have plenty of options to suite a variety of conditions / targets so from 6mm my set goes 5mm, 4.7mm, 4mm, 3.5mm and 3mm.

I used to be a bit OCD about collecting eyepiece sets but I also don't like to see one stuck regularly in the eyepiece case not being used much.

 

 

 

 

[bingevader]

I think it's OCD.

The only cure is to give them all to me.

In fact, the only way to really cure it is to buy the ES 6.7mm and give that to me too.

[bomberbaz]

9 minutes ago, bingevader said:

I think it's OCD.

The only cure is to give them all to me.

In fact, the only way to really cure it is to buy the ES 6.7mm and give that to me too.

hahahaha, knew someone would suggest something like this, nice one Ben 

[Paul73]

Sounds perfectly logical to me.

Obviously, I am above such temptation and have not looked at the classifies or ABS or FleeBay of Astroboot for months.......

What will be your next Astro purchase?

i've run out of astro money so have to resort to spending other people's.

Sorry

Paul

[LukeSkywatcher]

About the only EP i use now across all my scopes is the 8-24mm Hyperion zoom. Its a one stop shop and suits my needs. I could sell every other EP i own, but like you......i feel they wont fetch much. To much hassle/expense to sell and ship overseas.

Have to admit when it comes to EP's/astro gear in general.......i'm a hoarder.

[bomberbaz]

I knew this thread was a good idea, I can feel my slight guilt at the proposed purchase of the 2 ES ep's lifting now, ahhhhhh annnnd relax  

[triton1]

With my collection it's similar to what John says I seem to be ok at medium to low I'm getting

35x and 70x,45x and 90x,58x and 116x,76x and 152x,125x and 250x that's when the gaps start to appear when you get to the 5mm you get 200x and 400x,I plan to get the 3.5mm but it's still going to leave gaps around the 300x plus which are handy for doubles and planetary on good nights so at higher powers I wouldn't say it's Ocd in fact I'm Ocd at lower powers for some strange reason.Oh no more eyepieces and a bigger case I could not cope with two cases they would have to be very neatly filled.

[Bart]

I was collecting a nice bunch of EPs. However, I've recently found myself using one or two EPs during a session, especially when no planets were involved. I sold a couple of nice EPs that I had hankered over, and bought a nice 100* one instead. I'm pretty much there now. However, like John I kept a few in the low numbers for squeezing the most out of the planets primarily, so I have 7, 6, 5 and 4.8mm (I know, I know, last 2 are VERY close, but I like them too much to get rid of?)

I suppose it's kind of OCD-lite......

I started off this post trying to say I was working down my EP numbers, but now realise I still have an EP problem......

Barry

[John]

8 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

I knew this thread was a good idea, I can feel my slight guilt at the proposed purchase of the 2 ES ep's lifting now, ahhhhhh annnnd relax  

Don't feel any guilt mate - I've just totted up that I have around £1200 worth of glass (used value) covering the 6mm - 3mm focal length span. I'm a serious eyepiece nutter

 

[LukeSkywatcher]

With my zoom EP and all the other EP's i own.........i actually dont think i have a gap between 6-30mm. I did buy a 2nd hand 40mm Elux........but quickly sold it on because i simply didnt like it. The great thing about the 8-24mm zoom is that with patience/skill it is an 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 EP.

[bomberbaz]

8 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

With my zoom EP and all the other EP's i own.........i actually dont think i have a gap between 6-30mm. I did buy a 2nd hand 40mm Elux........but quickly sold it on because i simply didnt like it. The great thing about the 8-24mm zoom is that with patience/skill it is an 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 EP.

You missed out all the .5's, not much OCD in you Paul ;-)

[Dave In Vermont]

Hiya Steve - I missed this thread before, but I'm reading same now. Such a dilemna! But here's some that I rather doubt you've heard of before - unless you've seen my link to this elsewhere in these forums. This guy doesn't ship outside the continental USA, but there's always a way if this piques your desires through the rafters:

http://russell-optics.com/index.html

I just pulled in a 2" 50mm Super-Plossl. Been cloudy since - of course. But it appears very nicely made by this guy. He truly lives in a desolate place in Arizona - about 20 miles from a major highway! Takes him up to 3 days to get his mail.

Enjoy looking & behave yourself!

Dave

[Highburymark]

We all have far too many eyepieces. I made the mistake of getting a decent collection of TeleVues and only then deciding that I wanted a Leica zoom - that provided almost the precise range covered by the TeleVues. Tonight I've been out and - with a new UHC filter - looked at M42 through 6 different eyepieces and loved every one of them (particularly clear evening in London, despite the sky being lit up by Arsenal's stadium). Wouldn't sell them for the earth (although wouldn't mind swapping my almost unused Delos 6mm for a Delos 8mm). If it weren't for us OCD'ers, these wonderful bits of kit wouldn't exist, and life would be much, much duller.

[Floater]

2 hours ago, Bart said:

... I'm pretty much there now. ...

Doctor! Quick! His delusions are back again!

[Mak the Night]

You can never have enough eyepieces lol! I've recently been acquiring a range (12.5mm through 32mm) for my bino, and you have to buy pairs of EP's!

[Piero]

Nice thread! I guess my signature doesn't help you!  

More seriously, to me eyepieces work as pairs or trios. I cannot really think about buying an eyepiece on its own. 

....ok.. possibly the above sentence is even less helpful..! 

What I mean is that if there is a certain distance but not too much between two eyepieces, I haven't found the need to put something in between. If this distance is too short, one of the two eyepieces does not get much use. In terms of exit pupils, a set like (4-5mm) - (2-2.5mm) - (1.3-1.5mm) plus a barlow / powermate cover all my needs.  

 

[alan potts]

I too am a bit like John, fairly well spaced out in focal lengths at the wide end so speak. I did have a full set of Delos eyepiece and most of the Ethos and Nagler ranges, this covered mid rang and high power, it is a problem when you have scopes from 3048mm F/L to a mear 420mm, you tend to use a few. My trouble was I felt i was being OCD about sets with Delos and Ethos matches at 6, 8, 10 & 17mm and you may as well include 12&14mm D and 13mm E in that. I couldn't see any differences to get excited about between them even though that didn't stop me looking for hours on end.

I also had Naglers sitting at 5, 7, 9, 11, 12 & 16mm, so a serious eyepiece problem. However, one week on the Derek's eyepiece diet and I had two empty cases and a good few quid in my pocket.

I still have a fair close knit bunch at high power with the 3.5,& 4.5mm Delos'sss, 4, & 5 mm Radians and the Nagler zoom 3-6mm covering them all. I have only shed the 3mm Radian and 5mm XW, the former because it is almost always too much and the latter because I prefer the 4.5mm Delos for power reasons, optically they sing the same song.

I can be happy with 4/5mm gaps below about 20mm but I do like to have that close grouping for the power ends which is different on each scope. I sometimes feel it was an error selling the 14mm Delos as sometimes the jump from 15mm Plossl to 13mm E on the Meade 12 inch with its 3 meter plus F/L is a bit too much on some nights.

I am going to stop there before I start ordering more eyepieces.

Alan

[bomberbaz]

Oh dear, just hit the "buy" button again. An ES 6.7/82 and a ES 20/68 is on its way to me.

However thats it, there are no further gaps in my collection, I don't need or intend buying anything else. Honest, I really, really mean it this time. You can quote me on that, I won't be buying anything else again. Well for a while anyway, certainly a few months at least. Oh heck how do you close your paypal account down and remove the FLO link will you before my will collapses (fingers crossed)  

[YKSE]

Yes, Steve, we truly truly believe you, there's absolutely no gap in your collections as long as you don't look at them.