Getting rid of eyepieces feels.....good?

[Paul73]

Who am I kidding? 

Timebandit is right! Well said that man!

Full eyepiece case = Happy Stargazer.???

[Moonshane]

Correction a full eyepiece case but with one empty space (as the eyepiece is in the scope with an eye on the end of it) = happy stargazer...

[parallaxerr]

53 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

I consider that due to the variety of atmosphere conditions which can change minute to minute and day to day then you do need 0.5 mm or 1mm intervals in high magnification to get the best out of a lunar/planetary session.

Well I had wondered if this was the case when considering a 9mm SLV, but then decided 1mm wasn't going to make much difference. Now you have me thinking about a 9 and a 12mm.....darn you SGL!

[Stu]

Having recently built up a nice little 2" eyepiece case, I then had to sell the two best eyepieces in the case, my 30mm 82 degree and 20mm 100 degree ES.

All a bit gutting, but I can live with what I've got. I keep a full set of BGOs as much for collectionist reasons as any other. Generally I only use a few eyepieces.

40mm TMB Paragon

24mm Panoptic

12.5mm BGO

3 to 6 Nag Zoom

I have a x2.5 PowerMate, an AP Barcon and Zeiss Abbe Barlow which I use frequently, for instance with the 12.5mm BGO to give me a 6mm Ortho with good eye relief.

I also have two Zeiss 25mm Orthos for my binoviewers, oh, and pairs of 40mm, 32mm Omni Plossls and some 16mm Nikons. Where do they keep coming from?? I think that makes fifteen eyepieces with four scopes.

Last night was a bit crazy. I used my 25mm ortho in the Zeiss Barlow, in the PowerMate with my Tak. That gave me x148, or more if I slid the eyepiece up in the holder.

The crazy thing is, this gave a result that was as good if not better than the Nag Zoom on Jupiter but with better eye relief. I enjoy experimenting with the unconventional

The point about having multiple scopes with different focal lengths is very valid though.

The dob boys use one scope generally, and are going after targets of similar size i.e. Faint galaxies. In this instance, you could very well get away with a 21mm Ethos as a Finder and an 8mm Ethos as a high power.

There have been times when I've had scopes with focal lengths anywhere from 388mm up to 4000mm! In this case you need additional eyepieces to be able to cover the magnification or exit pupil ranges in each scope.

[Littleguy80]

21 minutes ago, parallaxerr said:

Well I had wondered if this was the case when considering a 9mm SLV, but then decided 1mm wasn't going to make much difference. Now you have me thinking about a 9 and a 12mm.....darn you SGL!

Wait and see if you feel like you're missing the 12mm. You may well find that the 1mm doesn't make a difference to you. We all have our own preferences 

[swamp thing]

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

 

The dob boys use one scope generally, and are going after targets of similar size i.e. Faint galaxies. In this instance, you could very well get away with a 21mm Ethos as a Finder and an 8mm Ethos as a high power.

 

I should have added that to my post 

It goes a long way to explain the lack of necessity of a case full of glass. One scope and targets of similar size negates the requirement for an extensive eyepiece collection and I am not suggesting others do it. As has been said you need variety when observing different objects and in different conditions.  

[Timebandit]

36 minutes ago, parallaxerr said:

Well I had wondered if this was the case when considering a 9mm SLV, but then decided 1mm wasn't going to make much difference. Now you have me thinking about a 9 and a 12mm.....darn you SGL!

 

? Welcome back to the "Dark Side " you know it makes sense. The more the merrier?

[estwing]

Bang on Stu..21ethos then the 8,I tried just the 13E at the weekend but struggled..i ain't no Damian!

[estwing]

I have a full set of the 3000 Japanese plossls...they were cheap but now sort after,very good performance from these..

[Alan White]

I have gone around the houses, but ended up with an extended set like yours Jon.

6, 10, 15, 20, 25 SLV and 30 NPL.

I think this sort of covers things for now, the FLO deal rather helped quicken the purchase.

Finding it hard to sell off my other ep's though.

[John]

Everbody knows that I'm an eyepiece miminalist

I've cut the numbers right down now - well below 20

But they do all get a decent amount of use .........

[Highburymark]

4 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

It's interesting to see how many comments are made about heavy eyepieces and how weight is undesirable. I've not owned any hand grenades but for me, I can't see that weight would be an issue as I can balance the SCT and Frac against each other. Perhaps a grenade in each would be an issue if I ran out of dovetail length??

I'm just moving from having an 8" SCT as my main telescope to a lightweight 4" frac on a photo tripod, so I'm really enjoying using just light eps. 

I think there's also an element of always having an ambition to progress with this hobby - to try something new - even if it's not the most cost effective option. That may mean just collecting more scopes and eps - or for most of us selling gear to buy something else, but part of the enjoyment of astronomy is learning about what's on the market and always having an eye on the future. I wonder how many people who have slimmed down to 3 or 4 eyepieces from a larger collection actually resist buying anything else over the long term? I know I'd be rubbish at any attempt to be minimalist - despite my ridiculous claims earlier that all I really need are two eyepieces ?

[Piero]

In your place I would not exchange your Vixen SLV for TV Delites unless you want that extra fov. I never looked though the Delites but I did look though TV Delos, and Ethos/Delos/Delite share the same technology. After many comparisons between my two previous Delos and my 2 SLV, apart from the 50deg vs 72deg, they were essentially on par on all the targets I tested them. The only minimal difference was the colour which was more neutral in the SLV to my eye (and I prefer it). I am not saying that the Delites are not good. Not at all. I think they are very good, but I am not convinced you go "deeper" with them, compared to what you already have.

Vixen SLV `bright ring`. I read the CN thread (also posted in this thread) in the past about this ring and its side effect when observing very bright targets (e.g. the Moon). As it was mentioned above, this issue seems to appear in the very earliest batches of Vixen SLV. My 5mm and 9mm were bought in 2015 and 2016, and don't show the problem. The metal ring is there but is correctly blackened.

 

p.s. My approach is also minimalist. Essentially for two reasons: 1) I don't like to have things that don't get used much; 2) I couldn't afford large sets of top-notch glass with the features I like. So, little, very good, and well used seem to work well for me.

[John]

I didn't see the "bright ring" effect in the SLV's that I tested for the forum. Don Pensack, who posted about this on the CN forum, is an eyepiece dealer so it's possible that he might have had a very early one ?

 

[Paul73]

No bright rings here either! Don's must have been faulty or, as John suggests, a prototype.

Re. Colour - the SLV does have a colder (whiter) cast than the Delos range. The moon is the only target where this is particularly noticeable. However, it seems to add a bit of contrast to Jupiter.....

Paul

[Piero]

At least to my eye there was a quite noticeable difference in colour on Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon of course. Some people prefer a slightly warmer tone on Jupiter to catch the faint features. Personally I like the "white" in these targets. Nearly all my current eyepieces show neutral-ish colour. I guess this is just a different preference though. 

[Moonshane]

1 hour ago, John said:

I didn't see the "bright ring" effect in the SLV's that I tested for the forum. Don Pensack, who posted about this on the CN forum, is an eyepiece dealer so it's possible that he might have had a very early one ?

 

Great point John. I was not aware Don was a dealer. He certainly knows his onions though.

[happy-kat]

This post has made me really think about the next eyepiece I've done a table and my stumbler is if I get a 10mm with my C70 that's only 1mm exit pupil, but if I get a 20mm that's really low mag in my ST80... Decisions. If I barlow a 20mm do you keep the same exit pupil as of it were not barlowed? I don't do well with 1mm exit pupil it's a pain finding the image, become a waggle head lol.

[Stu]

7 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

This post has made me really think about the next eyepiece I've done a table and my stumbler is if I get a 10mm with my C70 that's only 1mm exit pupil, but if I get a 20mm that's really low mag in my ST80... Decisions. If I barlow a 20mm do you keep the same exit pupil as of it were not barlowed? I don't do well with 1mm exit pupil it's a pain finding the image, become a waggle head lol.

Yes, the exit pupil is defined as the aperture divided by magnification, or eyepiece focal length divided by telescope focal ratio. The Barlow doubles the focal ratio of the scope, so the exit pupil halves.

[Ags]

For my 150/F5 scope I only see the need for 3.5 eyepieces.:

- 32mm/70deg erfle finder EP - 3deg TFOV

- 24mm/68deg - 2.2deg TFOV

- 9mm/82deg - 1deg TFOV

- 5mm/60deg - 0.5deg TFOV

I don't currently own the 32mm EP, and am still thinking about it. I need help finding stuff, but not sure I want the kerfuffle of swapping 2" and 1.25" accessories. Being an Erfle at F5 and with an exit pupil of 6.4mm I doubt the views would be great, but 3 degrees TFOV is very useful.

At the higher end, I would like a little more magnification if I can make the scope more stable. I'm currently thinking of either an ES 4.7mm/82deg or a Nagler 3-6 zoom. Or maybe both 

I also need to upgrade the 24mm Hyperion as it doesn't do well at F5. Possibly the ES 18mm.

 

[Alan White]

On 4/26/2017 at 16:24, parallaxerr said:

Well I had wondered if this was the case when considering a 9mm SLV, but then decided 1mm wasn't going to make much difference. Now you have me thinking about a 9 and a 12mm.....darn you SGL!

Jon, I was having the same thoughst about the SLV line up as well. 
Fortunate that I am running low on fun funds at present!

[alan potts]

I slimmed down my eyepieces a fair while back now, this was large on the back of another member doing much the same thing. With the collection of scopes I have 4 would never be enough but having got rid of 7 I don't miss them at all. The good thing was most of them were bought secondhand and I didn't really loss much on them at all, just need the clouds to clear off to use the ones that are left.

Alan