Brandon eye pieces

[jetstream]

I read a few reports that Brandons gave the same views as ZAOII on lunar/ planetary in some pretty nice refractors. Seeing is most likely the largest factor when comparing eyepieces for detail on solar system objects and over in the USA they get some fantastic seeing. My own arsenal of eyepieces has been picked apart under reasonable seeing with some surprises popping up.

Brandons are not redundant, they are just expensive.

Many adored "plossls" are really just symmetric doublets. Get this- not one Televue Plossl or any other Televue I've owned for that matter has beat my best orthos for on axis sharpness and I believe that Brandons could compete (at least) with my orthos running at f7 or slower. I will buy one to see.

[Dave In Vermont]

6 hours ago, Louis D said:

By those standards, the Zeiss observatory class monocentrics must be a joke as well.  I'd still gladly accept a set of them.

There remains a difference which refutes this comparison: The Zeiss Monocentrics remained and remains in production from their date of introduction, while the Brandon' EP's. all but disappeared back then. Orthoscopics, Plössls, the Zeiss, etal continued.....

But why were Brandon-design EP's allowed to become an all-but-forgotten item? If they were to be picked-up by the Chinese optical industries and made in China - and sold at prices similar to the Plössl and Orthoscopic eyepieces - we wouldn't be having this discussion. So the real question to research is 'Why?' What is the reason for the Brandon EP's to go beneath the 'event horizon?'

Dave

[Merlin66]

Private company in financial trouble??

[Dave1]

Well I was doing a search and this thread come up. I've been thinking to try Brandon's for a few years now. I've read everything there is to see. 

Brandons are similar to Plossl, and Konigs in design ( depending where you read people say there similar to Plossl, Konig, or Orthoscopics ). Really they are there own design. They use 4 pieces of glass arranged in two elements. The reason why Brandon's are so expensive is because of the glass they use in them. I might add they use 4 different types of glass. There are two extremely high index glasses in the design, both outside elements: barium flint, and a “double extra dense flint”. The interior elements are a lanthanum crown, and a light crown.

Brandons only need Mg.Fl and not modern multi coatings because of the glass types used which are very dense. " Thomas M. Back, founder of TMB, while discussing his own monocentric designs, remarked that Brandons do very well with single layer coating because the glass is very dense."

I learnt all of the above from this review here https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/eyepieces1405754339/brandon-eyepieces-r2344. This review seems to be the most informative that I have ever read.

Edit to say, an American dealer for Brandons is having a closing down sale on Ebay. I've just bought an 8mm Brandon, with about $100 off the rrp! I've bought it with the intention of later buying the Brandon Dakin 1.25x barlow to bring the 8mm down to 6.4mm. With the intention of using this eyepiece in my 80mm F15 telescope for viewing planets. Should be a match mad in heaven!

Dave

[munirocks]

I just came across this old thread. When I look at planets they are almost never on a sharp velvety black background. They always have at least a little haze around them from light scatter in the atmosphere, the eyepiece, or the mistiness/floaters in my own eyeballs. I was viewing Mars a few weeks ago through my ETX 90, with a 13 mm Ethos, and the planet was showing noticeable haze around it so I switched to a 12 mm Brandon. The haze was much less, which improved the view. Maybe my dodgy eyeball multiplies whatever haze is being produced by the atmosphere or eyepiece, but the difference was noticeable, and Brandons are supposed to be famous for suppressing "narrow-angle scatter", whatever that is. I'm not sure if the extra darkening could be accounted for by the extra magnification (12 mm instead of 13 mm), but the Mars view was cleaner in the Brandon. Mine wasn't expensive. £100 used.

[BillP]

I had the complete set for quite a while.  They utilize single coatings, so no multicoatings.  The narrow-angle scatter is related to all the layers in multicoatings.  There are always some level of particulates and irregularities between the multilayer coatings, and those issues generate a small amount of scatter close to the star point.  Comparing a ZAO to a Brandon to a TV Plossl for this type of scatter around a star point is fairly obvious to see for me, the ZAO and Brandons being very close and the TV Plossl (and others) showing the brighter halo close to the star point.  Not a big overt thing but if you are atuned to the small differences you will see them.  Overall the Brandons, like the ZAOs, show a bit of a richer black background FOV.  So they give IMO a very refined view of open clusters and globs.  Of the common current production eyepieces, their planetary performance is excellent.  Unfortunately they do not have a lot of small focal lengths and the eye relief is really tight so uncomfortable in that role.  The annoying thing about them for me is how poor the off-axis is relative to their price point.  While they are advertised to be designed for as low as f/7, the off-axis is aberrated even at f/8, and even in an f/16.7 refractor I had the off-axis still did not fully clean up!  So a really refined on-axis being low in scatter with highly contrasted black background views, but a really untamed off-axis.  Their AFOVs are also not entirely consistent between the different focal lengths.  The 24mm is larger.  Given the very nice on-axis star point, a good doubles eyepiece.  But still overly expensive IMO.  An acquired taste.  The Vernonscope 2.4x Dakin Barlow btw is quite excellent.  Very clean and transparent and held its own against even the best Barlows I've tested.  The little "Magic Dakin Barlows" they sell not so hot IMO and show lateral color that was just too much for me.  But the original 2.4x Dakin is quite excellent...although again expensive.  Their quartz silver 1/20th wave diagonals are to die for.  Hands down best diagonal I have ever used.  Would love to own one but at $795 USD way too expensive for me.  But wow was it excellent being the brightest and lowest scatter diagonal I've come across!!!

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, BillP said:

The Vernonscope 2.4x Dankin Barlow btw is quite excellent.  Very clean and transparent and held its own against even the best Barlows I've tested.  The little "Magic Dankin Barlows" they sell not so hot IMO and show lateral color that was just too much for me.  But the original 2.4x Dankin is quite excellent...although again expensive. 

In case anyone is trying to search for them, it's Dakin Barlow.

[BillP]

6 hours ago, Louis D said:

In case anyone is trying to search for them, it's Dakin Barlow.

 

Thanks for noticing.  I corrected my original post.