Planetary eyepiece

[John]

3 hours ago, Maged said:

I believe wide field is better since I had to nudge the telescope during observation. I'm thinking Delos 6 mm to be ready for Mars opposition  It will provide 250X which I think will be enough, considering I have tried to observe Mars whenever possible but all I got was a tiny red dot !

I can't argue with that because I use Tele Vue Ethos and Pentax XW's for most of my high power observing. All my scopes are on alt-azimuth, undriven mounts.

 

[marcopolo]

Televue Delite . It leaves the Naglers, Pentax AND Taks eating dust. It's a miracle eyepiece for high power viewing. Best thing since the TMB mono disappeared.

[John]

1 hour ago, marcopolo said:

Televue Delite . It leaves the Naglers, Pentax AND Taks eating dust. It's a miracle eyepiece for high power viewing. Best thing since the TMB mono disappeared.

I believe the Delite is showing slightly better performance than the Delos, Ethos, XW's etc but I think "eating dust" is a bit over the top in all honesty.

These are all very fine eyepieces and the differences between them are subtle I've found, having compared many of them.

I do think the Delite's are very interesting eyepieces and I'd certainly be interested in them if certain focal lengths are added to the range

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I would tend to agree. I haven't looked through the Delites yet, but I have found that the differences between high-end EPs are subtle, and I cannot reproduce the results made in many hyperbolic reports. I certainly don't believe in miracles in optics. An example is the "coffee colour" claimed to be present in Radians: yes they are somewhat warmer in tone than the Pentax XWs and XF I compared them to, but the differences are far more subtle than some people claim. Likewise, I have had excellent views of planets with the humble Plossl design. XWs improve on them, but most of that improvement is off-axis. In a driven mount, that is not as important as on a manual one. The main advantage of the XWs is their much better eye relief and hence viewing comfort.

[Mak the Night]

Oh no, I'll want to get a DeLite now! I can't see the 11mm DeLite being much of an improvement on my 10mm Delos though. It has a slightly smaller field stop than the Delos and 10° less FOV for a start. The 18.2mm DeLite looks nice though. As I'm pondering all of this ... Mars is getting nearer ... lol!

I picked this 15mm Antares UPL Elite Plossl up recently. I haven't had much decent weather to test it much yet but what I've seen I'm very impressed with. It is Japanese made and is very like an orthoscopic to view with, and has the same bright 'contrasty' feel but with the 52° (allegedly) FOV of a standard Plossl. I believe it has five elements. It came without an eyecup but I'm not a great fan of those below around 30mm anyway. It is beautifully constructed and well finished with some weight to it considering its size. It seems easily as well made and finished as my 15mm TV. The only little bugbear is the slight undercut on the draw-tube. It isn't a huge problem though and behaves well on extraction in a shorty 2.5x apo Barlow. They are a discontinued line of eyepieces. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I prefer it to my 15mm TV in many ways.

[John]

The Antares Elite plossls were the same design as the Celestron Ultimas, the Orion (USA) Ultrascopics, the Parks Gold series plossls and, possibly, the Baader Eudiascopics.

I had a number of the Celestron and Orion incarnations and I liked them a lot. Certainly as good as Tele Vue plossls.

[Mak the Night]

4 minutes ago, John said:

The Antares Elite plossls were the same design as the Celestron Ultimas, the Orion (USA) Ultrascopics, the Parks Gold series plossls and, possibly, the Baader Eudiascopics.

I had a number of the Celestron and Orion incarnations and I liked them a lot. Certainly as good as Tele Vue plossls.

Yes, I think I've read that they were the same as those. AFAIK Baader only have a 10mm and 35mm Eudiascopic now. They look good though.

[Maged]

4.5mm Delos or 8mm Delos on with a barlow? will the barlow affect the AFOV?

[John]

10 minutes ago, Maged said:

4.5mm Delos or 8mm Delos on with a barlow? will the barlow affect the AFOV?

Which barlow ?

It should not affect the AFoV because the field stop on 8mm 72 degree eyepieces is quite small. You would want a decent quality barlow to ensure that it's not the "weakest link" in the optical chain though.

 

[Maged]

1 hour ago, John said:

Which barlow ?

It should not affect the AFoV because the field stop on 8mm 72 degree eyepieces is quite small. You would want a decent quality barlow to ensure that it's not the "weakest link" in the optical chain though.

 

I was thinking of a power mate. 

[John]

32 minutes ago, Maged said:

I was thinking of a power mate. 

That would do nicely

[Maged]

Dear all,

Thanks for all the ideas and insights you provided here. And I wanted to let you know that it was worth it as I bought Delos 6mm, Nagler 9mm, Tele Vue Plossl 15mm  I broke my bank  

I wanted to provide a quick first impression after using them last night. Just to remind you my scope is a 10" F5.7 Dobsonian and I believe it is not 100% accurately collimated but that doesn't mean it is not collimated so lets get collimation out of the equation. 

Here is my first impression in few words:

- Delos 6mm: definitely showing more details of Jupiter and Saturn compared to my (cheep old 6mm which had bad chromatic aberration). But my only comment on it is that it wasn't that sharp as I expected (I understand that seeing conditions might have an effect) but I was definitely expecting more. Mars appeared as a bigger red disk compared to my other eyepieces but still not sharp and washed out red color.  

- Nagler 9mm: The 82 degrees field of view is unbeatable, but the issue with it was that contrast was not as I expected.

- Tele Vue 15mm: It took my by surprise as it showed unbeatable contrast and dead on sharpness that made Jupiter pop against the dark void of space behind it. I really enjoyed using it and it will be a very usable item in my collection.

 

I would really like to have your thoughts and let me know if you agree with my impressions? what should I do to improve the view through the Delos 6mm as I feel slightly disappointed.

Cheers,

 

[Mak the Night]

I've not used the 6mm Delos, so it's difficult for me to be objective. I can't fault my 10mm Delos at all and nearly fell over after viewing M42 through it as it was jaw droppingly good. I have a T5 16mm Nagler and the only thing I can find fault with it is the close eye relief of 10mm. I use it with a Powermate for lunar/planetary with my 102mm Mak and I can't really say it has contrast issues. It isn't an orthoscopic-like view though like my 15mm Antares UPL though.

[John]

The eyepieces you have purchased are consistently 1st class performers and have a superb reputation wherever they are discussed. They should work as well as practically any eyepieces that are available with your 10" F/5.7.

The issues that could be causing the views to be as they are could be:

- seeing conditions being mediocre

- scope not properly cooled and / or viewing through central heating plumes etc, etc

- expectations being just a little too high

- the collimation of the scope not being accurate

- the optical quality of the mirrors in the scope being less than optimum

 

[Maged]

From the reviews I read on the Delos 6mm I was expecting really more. But sadly the image is a little washed out. 

[Mak the Night]

5 minutes ago, Maged said:

From the reviews I read on the Delos 6mm I was expecting really more. But sadly the image is a little washed out. 

John's probably right about the causes of any problems. I didn't know what to expect from my Delos, I assumed it would be like my 10mm Luminos but with less FOV and a diminished field stop. I honestly wasn't expecting a lot, but I was more than pleasantly surprised at what I saw.

[Maged]

10 minutes ago, John said:

The eyepieces you have purchased are consistently 1st class performers and have a superb reputation wherever they are discussed. They should work as well as practically any eyepieces that are available with your 10" F/5.7.

The issues that could be causing the views to be as they are could be:

- seeing conditions being mediocre

- scope not properly cooled and / or viewing through central heating plumes etc, etc

- expectations being just a little too high

- the collimation of the scope not being accurate

- the optical quality of the mirrors in the scope being less than optimum

 

 

I thought about the collimation but the view through the 15 mm plossl was waw..

[John]

3 minutes ago, Maged said:

 

I thought about the collimation but the view through the 15 mm plossl was waw..

The lower magnification would present a sharper and more colour saturated image. As the magnification increases the underlying quality of the image formed by the scope is tested more by being expanded more by the eyepiece.

What brand of scope do you have by the way ?

I use a 6mm Ethos in my 12" F/5.3 dobsonian and the image of the planets and the moon is pin sharp, assuming that the seeing conditions are decent. The 6mm Delos should be at least as good and maybe even a little better than an Ethos.

 

 

[Maged]

8 minutes ago, John said:

The lower magnification would present a sharper and more colour saturated image. As the magnification increases the underlying quality of the image formed by the scope is tested more by being expanded more by the eyepiece.

What brand of scope do you have by the way ?

I use a 6mm Ethos in my 12" F/5.3 dobsonian and the image of the planets and the moon is pin sharp, assuming that the seeing conditions are decent. The 6mm Delos should be at least as good and maybe even a little better than an Ethos.

 

 

My scope is 100% hand made. Including the mirror. 

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Maged said:

Dear all,

Thanks for all the ideas and insights you provided here. And I wanted to let you know that it was worth it as I bought Delos 6mm, Nagler 9mm, Tele Vue Plossl 15mm  I broke my bank  

I wanted to provide a quick first impression after using them last night. Just to remind you my scope is a 10" F5.7 Dobsonian and I believe it is not 100% accurately collimated but that doesn't mean it is not collimated so lets get collimation out of the equation. 

Here is my first impression in few words:

- Delos 6mm: definitely showing more details of Jupiter and Saturn compared to my (cheep old 6mm which had bad chromatic aberration). But my only comment on it is that it wasn't that sharp as I expected (I understand that seeing conditions might have an effect) but I was definitely expecting more. Mars appeared as a bigger red disk compared to my other eyepieces but still not sharp and washed out red color.  

- Nagler 9mm: The 82 degrees field of view is unbeatable, but the issue with it was that contrast was not as I expected.

- Tele Vue 15mm: It took my by surprise as it showed unbeatable contrast and dead on sharpness that made Jupiter pop against the dark void of space behind it. I really enjoyed using it and it will be a very usable item in my collection.

 

I would really like to have your thoughts and let me know if you agree with my impressions? what should I do to improve the view through the Delos 6mm as I feel slightly disappointed.

Cheers,

 

It's almost impossible to objectively compare eyepieces of such different focal lengths. The Plossl will give x95 and naturally a sharp and contrasty view, whilst the Delos at x237 could well have been too much power for the seeing conditions. Jupiter has a reputation for having low contrast features and over doing the magnification can easily wash it out.

Collimation is very important for planetary detail at high mag, so saying it was roughly collimated rather than accurately collimated does not mean you can disregard this as cause of the percieved under performance.

[scarp15]

Yep if you were using X237 on Jupiter with your dobsonian, it could be too much power. Such high power could apply for those intermittent periods of very good seeing and when Jupiter is more due south and so positioned at its highest point. I recently switched from a 6mm delos to a 6mm ethos. Initial impressions have been and this could be a little subjective, the delos just went a fraction deeper on enhancing surface detail when the seeing allowed, X200 with my dobsonian. Sharpness with both eyepeices is not an issue.  If you get clear skies over the weekend, try it on the Gibbous moon, that will give you a good and I might expect favourable account for its potential. It would also work well on the Globulars and open clusters. It is a lovely eyepiece and among its many attributes the eye relief is an absolute luxury, I think that you will grow to like it.

[Mak the Night]

Come to think of it, I particularly agree with what was said above about Jupiter. I've had Saturn at 19x above the resolution limit with my 4" Mak. It was darker and a bit grainy but I expected that. Sometimes I struggle with 100x on Jupiter even after prolonged binoviewing sessions.