Baader Morpheus 17.5mm now available to pre- order...

[Ruud]

2 hours ago, Mark62 said:

I had a message from Lee (formally of Greenwich) that David Hines had contacted him and were posting my  Morpheus 17.5mm out to day which is really good news.

The 30 month wait is nearly over ( fingers crossed) 

Dying to know how it is!

[Mark62]

1 hour ago, Ruud said:

Dying to know how it is!

Me too just hope it’s not a disappointment 

[Ruud]

I know what you mean, @Mark62 

My hope is that you'll love it!

[Louis D]

I was out using my 17mm ES-92 and loving it last night.  My 14mm Morpheus wasn't too far behind and a lot smaller and lighter.  Hopefully, the new Morpheus could act as a lightweight counterpart to the ES-92.

[Ruud]

Seen this: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/533906-baader-morpheus-175mm-delayed/?p=8376315

Someone found a first impression from a guy in Germany. The translation is here:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astrotreff.de%2Ftopic.asp%3FTOPIC_ID%3D220920

[Louis D]

Interesting report.  It sounds like it slides down the performance slope started by the 14mm which has slight field curvature and astigmatism (and maybe lateral color) in the outer 5% to 10% of the field at f/6.  I guess I won't be trading in my 17mm ES-92 any time soon.  It is basically flat of field and has no astigmatism or lateral color at the edge of field.

[Ruud]

Here is another opinion, based on a brief session:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/533906-baader-morpheus-175mm-delayed/page-6#entry8378366

I'll wait a while. I also want to know what Mark thinks of the eyepiece.

[Mark62]

8 hours ago, Ruud said:

Here is another opinion, based on a brief session:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/533906-baader-morpheus-175mm-delayed/page-6#entry8378366

I'll wait a while. I also want to know what Mark thinks of the eyepiece.

Hopefully it will be hear tomorrow but the forecast is not looking good at the moment. I will give it a test as soon as I can and compare it to the rest of the range ASAP

[johnturley]

Quote

 

 

[johnturley]

My 17.5mm Morpheus arrived on Monday, and I was able to try it out fleetingly that day before it clouded over. Looking at the Pleiades through my 14in f5 Newtonian Reflector, my first impression was favourable, there was only a slight falling off of image quality towards the edge of the field.

I haven't previously owned a Morpheus eyepiece, and tend to agree with Baader when they say that 76 degrees is about the maximum that the human eye can comfortably cope with without having to move the eye around.

Another great thing is that it is 1.25in, fairly compact, and weighs only 400g, unlike many 2in wide field eyepieces which are massive, weigh around 1 kg or more, and require my telescope to be rebalanced.

[laowhoo]

On 2/6/2018 at 12:14, johnturley said:

tend to agree with Baader when they say that 76 degrees is about the maximum that the human eye can comfortably cope with without having to move the eye around.

 

Yay. Was thinking there was something wrong with my eyes, what with all these uber-wide, uber-priced super-duper wide fields. Not slamming those, but if we can save half by simply looking through the EP so much the better. BillP very favorably reviewed the Morpheus and thought we were gonna have to swap out. 

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/the-baader-planetarium-morpheus-r3003

and having just received his will be doing a follow-up review of these. Following to see how you like them.

[25585]

Vixen's 65 deg LVW range were sold stating that 65 was the normal fov for a human eye. I find wearing varifocal glasses that moving an eyeball too much goes into a different focal zone of my lens, and also curvature astigmatism from that, not the ep, can affect what I am looking at.

[Mak the Night]

40 minutes ago, 25585 said:

Vixen's 65 deg LVW range were sold stating that 65 was the normal fov for a human eye.

I read that sixty five degrees was the maximum field the eye could see before moving the eyeball. Stands a good chance.

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, Mak the Night said:

I read that sixty five degrees was the maximum field the eye could see before moving the eyeball. Stands a good chance.

Depends on what is meant by "seeing".  If you let your mind stop concentrating on the center, it is quite easy to take in the nearly 180 degree view afforded by our eyes.  You just can't see the edges with any sort of high resolution, but you can definitely see it is there giving context to the overall scene.

[Ruud]

20 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Depends on what is meant by "seeing".  If you let your mind stop concentrating on the center, it is quite easy to take in the nearly 180 degree view afforded by our eyes.  You just can't see the edges with any sort of high resolution, but you can definitely see it is there giving context to the overall scene.

That's true. I'm blind in the left periphery of my vision (the drop off begins 45 degrees to the left) and there really is a difference between the left and the right half of my vision. There's more world to my right.

My widest eyepieces are 82°. One needs to look around to study every detail in such a view, but everything is there and unless you concentrate on the edge any change or movement is noticed across the whole view.

[Mak the Night]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Depends on what is meant by "seeing".  If you let your mind stop concentrating on the center, it is quite easy to take in the nearly 180 degree view afforded by our eyes.  You just can't see the edges with any sort of high resolution, but you can definitely see it is there giving context to the overall scene.

I didn't think it included peripheral vision.

[Louis D]

High visual acuity is limited to maybe the center 10 degrees of vision.  Here's an interesting graph from Wikipedia showing falloff in relative visual acuity as the angle off center increases.

[25585]

3 hours ago, Louis D said:

Depends on what is meant by "seeing".  If you let your mind stop concentrating on the center, it is quite easy to take in the nearly 180 degree view afforded by our eyes.  You just can't see the edges with any sort of high resolution, but you can definitely see it is there giving context to the overall scene.

True & why they are good as finder eps. To get a target anywhere in a fov is good. Centering is harder when an image is south top, or west in east etc.

[Mak the Night]

Sounds about right.

[johnturley]

Looked again last night (Mon 12 Feb) under more favourable viewing conditions, and this time tried it with my ES HR Coma Corrector, which gave a noticeable improvement with stars sharp to the edge of the field. The edge of field definition was also much better than with my 36 mm Baader Hyperion Aspheric (using the corrector), although to be fair much more coma would be expected with an eyepiece giving half the magnification and twice the field of view. To be honest this was the first time I have used the coma corrector (which I purchased 3 months ago) visually, and for normal viewing probably wouldn’t bother, due to the hassle of setting up the coma corrector, and rebalancing my telescope.  Some writers in posts on other topics have said that visually they didn’t notice much difference between with and without a coma corrector.

I also tried the Morpheus with my ES 127mm f7.5 Refractor, in this case stars were sharp to the edge of the field without a coma corrector.