BGO Arrive

[Timebandit]

I have been looking for some BGO to use mainly in my refractor 120ed apo. My collection is small , but is starting to grow. So I thought I would give you a few snaps of hopefully a growing collection. I will try and do a report of my impression of the eyepieces,when I have had a bit more time at the eyepiece. Thanks and I hope you like my new offerings  

[John]

Nice eyepieces

I had fun testing a load of orthos, including some BGO's, a while back. The reports are on the forum somewhere I expect.

 

[F15Rules]

Fine eyepieces for planetary and double star viewing. They should give you some great views through your refractor:-).

If these came with the original packaging, KEEP IT! I'm often amazed as to why people discard the original boxes etc from nice items. It's easy to keep them in storage and if you sell the items on in future you will get the best possible price:-).

Dave

[Knighty2112]

Never tried an ortho before. Got my last EP for this year coming in a few days which will finish off my EP collection. Maybe next year I may get one to see how the perform on the moon and the planets. Enjoy your new addition to you EP collection.  

[John]

The orthos "forte" is the Moon, Planets and double stars IMHO although they are excellent for deep sky as well if you are content with the 40 degree AFoV.

To actually get better optical performance than the Baader GO's / Astro Hutech / Fujiyama / UO HD orthos you need to go to exotica such as the TMB Supermonocentric, Zeiss ZAO's and Pentax XO's all of which are very, very hard to source and cost at least 5x-7x as much as a used Baader GO. And even then the performance differences are very subtle and only apparent (to my eyes) on the nights of best seeing

 

 

 

 

[faulksy]

nice one timebandit, your going to love these, as john says these are top draw if you can live with the fov

[Louis D]

I've always wondered if entry level orthos would outperform my Pentax XL/XW and Delos eyepieces on axis for planets and the moon.  Has anyone tried side by side comparisons of classic ortho designs with modern wide fields?  I know the TMB Supermonocentrics, ZAOs and Pentax XOs will outperform them, but what about the under $100 crowd of orthos?

[CraigT82]

6 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I've always wondered if entry level orthos would outperform my Pentax XL/XW and Delos eyepieces on axis for planets and the moon.  Has anyone tried side by side comparisons of classic ortho designs with modern wide fields?  I know the TMB Supermonocentrics, ZAOs and Pentax XOs will outperform them, but what about the under $100 crowd of orthos?

I've used a 6mm BCO side by side on the moon with my 6.5mm Baader Morpheus (which I believe is equivalent to the XW in terms of on-axis sharpness).

The BCO definitely had the edge on the Morpheus for picking out the finest of fine detail, tiny craterlets that were hinted at win the Morpheus became 'definitely there' in the BCO., though saying that perhaps that could be down to the slight magnification advantage of the BCO.

The Baader BCOs are £50 new here in the UK.

[John]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

I've always wondered if entry level orthos would outperform my Pentax XL/XW and Delos eyepieces on axis for planets and the moon.  Has anyone tried side by side comparisons of classic ortho designs with modern wide fields?  I know the TMB Supermonocentrics, ZAOs and Pentax XOs will outperform them, but what about the under $100 crowd of orthos?

I've done such comparisons lots of times. The Ethos, Delos and XW's get very, very close to the performance of the Baader GO and like orthos, amazingly so given that they also have half a dozen+ lens elements, wide or ultra wide fields and fair amounts of eye relief.

The top flight SWA's / UWA's are good enough for me to not feel the need to have a set of orthos as well nowadays. My preference for scopes on undriven, alt-azimuth mounts plays a good part in this decision as well though.

 

 

 

[nightfisher]

When i decided to sell my set of Volcano top circle T ortho`s i was lucky enough to find a mint Antares 9mm HD ortho, this is a Baader with different writing and it really is a star of my ep set and a keeper for life (cheers Dave)

[faulksy]

my findings are similar, i found the baader ortho and pentax to be on par, never compared them to the ethos though, but a lot say nothing in it. i like the pentax more than the orthos due to fov and eye relief but 4x more

[F15Rules]

5 hours ago, Louis D said:

I've always wondered if entry level orthos would outperform my Pentax XL/XW and Delos eyepieces on axis for planets and the moon.  Has anyone tried side by side comparisons of classic ortho designs with modern wide fields?  I know the TMB Supermonocentrics, ZAOs and Pentax XOs will outperform them, but what about the under $100 crowd of orthos?

Outperform? No. Match on axis? Yes!

In my eyes the only difference is the field of view.

In the UK I don't think we get more than a very few nights each year where conditions would allow any subtle advantages one way or another to be seen.

There is definitely something about the "purity" of a high power Ortho view of a tight double on a steady night though!

Dave

[F15Rules]

4 hours ago, nightfisher said:

When i decided to sell my set of Volcano top circle T ortho`s i was lucky enough to find a mint Antares 9mm HD ortho, this is a Baader with different writing and it really is a star of my ep set and a keeper for life (cheers Dave)

Jules,

I honestly think that the 9mm, 7mm and 5mm Antares orthos were absolutely as good as any BGO (and I say that as a fan of BGOs). But for me, the 9mm was the pick of the bunch :-).

I've never seen another this side of the pond..

Dave

[John]

I used to own some of the orange lettered Antares flat top orthos and a green / white lettered one which seemed identical to the University Optics HD orthos. I thought them all very fine performers but I suspected the coatings were just a little better on the green / white lettered one.

I think my green / white lettered one was 9mm so maybe we are talking about the same eyepiece having been through a few owners hands !

I'd have loved to see the optics of the BGO's and other "HD" types set in "volcano top" bodies