Apo Barlow and Ortho Eyepiece

[Stu]

9 minutes ago, JPAG said:

Unfortunately there are still some months left to test the set ortho + apo barlow on the planets. I can't wait until then.

Not if you get up early!  

[glynnlondon]

I have the 12.5 and 7 and also a range of bcos. If you don't mind the shorter eye relief they are excellent value for the money.

They are nice and light so don't add no  weight when barlowed , i have the baader version.

I would say that along with my maxvision  ep the 12.5 I couldn't do without. 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, glynnlondon said:

I have the 12.5 and 7 and also a range of bcos. If you don't mind the shorter eye relief they are excellent value for the money.

They are nice and light so don't add no  weight when barlowed , i have the baader version.

I would say that along with my maxvision  ep the 12.5 I couldn't do without. 

If you mean a 24mm 68 degree maxvision, I agree. I have a 24mm Panoptic and with that, a 12.5mm ortho and a 3 to 6mm Nag Zoom (or just a decent barlow) and that's pretty much everything covered.

[glynnlondon]

That's the one crystal clear on both I love em.

[Mak the Night]

It’s worth pointing out that all of the Barlows and eyepieces I have mentioned can attain focus on the GSO SVD series 150mm, f/6 Newtonian scope. 

Not all Barlow/eyepiece combinations can. Most short Barlows will, and so far, I’ve found that my Baader 2.25x Q-Turret, GSO 2.5x apochromatic and Barsta 2x will achieve focus with the eyepieces I have used with them.

My Celestron X-Cel LX 2x and 3x Barlows also work, along with the basic GSO and Barsta 2x achromats. The Antares 1.5x ClickLock (shown) is fine and good quality for an achromat. Its filter threads are way oversized though and actually won’t hold a 1.25“ filter (whether they are M28.5 x 0.6 or not). This is a problem with many Antares products though.

[N3ptune]

Hello @JPAG I bought a 7mm Kokusai for my 8" Newtonian and it's a keeper, it will give 143x on it's own. I think it's very good for planetary and moon observation, it has sharper views then my other eyepieces too (slightly). I often use my orthoscopic on DSOs to have high magnification, it's small, handy and quick to grab to test high power on everything.

I use my 7mm OR-HD with a Xcel LX 2x barlow (like the previous picture from Mak the Night) for moon observation, they like each other very much, the combination will push my instrument to a strong 286x. The eye relief is a bit better with the barlow and it's comfortable even if the OR-HD has no rubber eyecup (impressive should be the word) On a good day my telescope can handle it quite well, I am still surprised.

One of my moon setups.

Like everyone said the views are clean, it's high quality optics for the amateur and mine is going to be star player in the upcoming Mars opposition this summer.

I am sure you will enjoy your 9mm orthoscopic and barlow JPAG. I can't talk much your barlow but has I see from other forum members, it's supposedly a good barlow.

[Mak the Night]

32 minutes ago, N3ptune said:

Hello @JPAG I bought a 7mm Kokusai for my 8" Newtonian and it's a keeper, it will give 143x on it's own. I think it's very good for planetary and moon observation, it has sharper views then my other eyepieces too (slightly). I often use my orthoscopic on DSOs to have high magnification, it's small, handy and quick to grab to test high power on everything.

I use my 7mm OR-HD with a Xcel LX 2x barlow (like the previous picture from Mak the Night) for moon observation, they like each other very much, the combination will push my instrument to a strong 286x. The eye relief is a bit better with the barlow and it's comfortable even if the OR-HD has no rubber eyecup (impressive should be the word) On a good day my telescope can handle it quite well, I am still surprised.

One of my moon setups.

Like everyone said the views are clean, it's high quality optics for the amateur and mine is going to be star player in the upcoming Mars opposition this summer.

I am sure you will enjoy your 9mm orthoscopic and barlow JPAG. I can't talk much your barlow but has I see from other forum members, it's supposedly a good barlow.

The 7mm Fujiyama definitely rocks!

The interesting thing about these 42° ortho’s is that they reduce well without vignetting. You can effectively double the focal lengths by just threading in a 0.5x reducer.

A 25mm ortho' now essentially with a 50mm focal length!

[JPAG]

On 12/23/2017 at 11:53, Stu said:

Not if you get up early!  

Unfortunately weather doesn't help: cloudy nights all the week.

[JPAG]

On 12/23/2017 at 12:50, glynnlondon said:

I have the 12.5 and 7 and also a range of bcos. If you don't mind the shorter eye relief they are excellent value for the money.

They are nice and light so don't add no  weight when barlowed , i have the baader version.

I would say that along with my maxvision  ep the 12.5 I couldn't do without. 

For me, the eye relief of orthos and/or plossl eyepieces below 8mm of focal distance it's very uncomfortable.

[JPAG]

On 12/23/2017 at 18:08, N3ptune said:

Hello @JPAG I bought a 7mm Kokusai for my 8" Newtonian and it's a keeper, it will give 143x on it's own. I think it's very good for planetary and moon observation, it has sharper views then my other eyepieces too (slightly). I often use my orthoscopic on DSOs to have high magnification, it's small, handy and quick to grab to test high power on everything.

I use my 7mm OR-HD with a Xcel LX 2x barlow (like the previous picture from Mak the Night) for moon observation, they like each other very much, the combination will push my instrument to a strong 286x. The eye relief is a bit better with the barlow and it's comfortable even if the OR-HD has no rubber eyecup (impressive should be the word) On a good day my telescope can handle it quite well, I am still surprised.

One of my moon setups.

Like everyone said the views are clean, it's high quality optics for the amateur and mine is going to be star player in the upcoming Mars opposition this summer.

I am sure you will enjoy your 9mm orthoscopic and barlow JPAG. I can't talk much your barlow but has I see from other forum members, it's supposedly a good barlow.

Thanks. I hope so.

[Louis D]

On 12/23/2017 at 12:48, Mak the Night said:

The 7mm Fujiyama definitely rocks!

The interesting thing about these 42° ortho’s is that they reduce well without vignetting. You can effectively double the focal lengths by just threading in a 0.5x reducer.

A 25mm ortho' now essentially with a 50mm focal length!

Maybe no vignetting, but what about field curvature and outer edge distortion induced by the focal reducer?  I might have to try this out with my 28mm Edmund RKE for kicks sometime.

[Stu]

4 hours ago, Louis D said:

Maybe no vignetting, but what about field curvature and outer edge distortion induced by the focal reducer?  I might have to try this out with my 28mm Edmund RKE for kicks sometime.

Given that the max afov with a 40mm eyepiece in 1.25" format is around 43 degrees, it seems that an effective 50mm eyepiece with the same field stop must vignette to a degree. Perhaps not noticeable, but there none the less, otherwise I assume they would be able to produce 50mm 42 degree afov eyepieces in 1.25".

[Mak the Night]

4 hours ago, Louis D said:

Maybe no vignetting, but what about field curvature and outer edge distortion induced by the focal reducer?  I might have to try this out with my 28mm Edmund RKE for kicks sometime.

I haven't noticed any, but I was using it in 102mm and 127mm Mak's in an effort to get a wider exit pupil, especially for broadband filters like the Baader UHC-S, Orion SkyGlow or even a broad narrowband like the Astronomik UHC-E. As I have a physical disability (I'm paralysed on the right side of my body) I was attempting to create a grab'n'go combination that would give me the fastest set-up time. My Vixen Porta II/Vixen SXG Hal-130 combo is stable for the 127mm Mak and ST80 with 2" diagonal but the Sky-Watcher AZ5 mount is a little light combined with the ST80 or 127mm Mak.

The 102mm Mak (above with AZ5 mount) is ideal and great for lunar/planetary and I can often get an easy 200x plus with it. It is very easy to manipulate with my disability and I can look right up at the zenith easily. It's not so hot for low power observing though so I experimented with various eyepieces  and some GSO 0.5x reducers. The AH ortho' worked well and I easily found the Andromeda Galaxy inter alia the first time I tried it. It gave 26x for a 1°, 36', 54" TFOV and a 3.9mm exit pupil. It wasn't like using 2" eyepieces on the ST80 but it was a set-up that I could assemble and disassemble quickly without the need for fetching my garden trolley. 

This inexpensive SvBony 25mm Kellner also produced decent results with no apparent vignetting of its 45° FOV.

Both 10mm and 23mm SvBony Aspherics (60°) fared well. The 23mm didn't vignette badly at all and I actually still use a bino pair plus reducers with the small Mak's 

This 15mm Revelation (GSO) SuperView was a surprise as it didn't vignette at all, although the 20mm version did badly. The eye relief was drastically reduced as well, although it wasn't a real problem for me. Oddly, my 19mm TeleVue Panoptic only vignetted slightly and was quite usable in the 102mm SkyMax.

This 25mm GSO Plossl also hardly showed any vignetting, although a 25mm TeleVue Plossl showed slightly more vignetting, they were both usable.

A 25mm BST StarGuider didn't show much vignetting as well and was also quite usable. 

I even tried this Bushnell Kellner, which vignetted more than the SvBony Kellner above, but could still be used. All in all, it did offer a solution of sorts for low power viewing with a small Mak.

Eventually I decided to try the ST80 on the AZ5 mount but keeping to a 1.25" diagonal and light eyepieces, which kept the weight down. In this way it made my Orion ST80 light enough to manipulate predominantly with one arm. I miss the 2" eyepieces when I use it with the AZ5 but it makes life a lot easier for me. In winter weather this enables me to take advantage of any decent breaks and get some low power viewing in. The 19mm Panoptic works really well with the ST80/AZ5 combo. Used without a reducer of course lol. Interestingly, the 'plastic fantastic' 23mm SvBony Aspheric didn't do too badly in the ST80 with a reducer, with very little edge of field distortion, and was useful as a finder at least. 

 

I don't think the experiment was a total failure as I did achieve near 4mm exit pupils on all three of my Synta Mak's. It allowed me to utilise an Orion SkyGlow filter with a 3.6mm exit pupil when observing the Orion Nebula with a 90mm Mak, which was a first. In fact, I even tried an Astronomik UHC-E, a Lumicon LF3025 UHC and an Orion UltraBlock filter with the same combination as a comparison. The results were predictable, but it's the first time I've achieved an exit pupil above 3.1mm on a small Mak with any real success.

 

As for the reduced 25mm AH orthoscopic, as far as I could tell, in all three Mak's, there were no perceivable distortions or vignetting at all. I think I'll just have to get used to the 1.25" eyepieces if I use my ST80 with the AZ5 however. At least I have the choice now between a Mak or a frac lol.

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, Mak the Night said:

As I have a physical disability (I'm paralysed on the right side of my body) I was attempting to create a grab'n'go combination that would give me the fastest set-up time.

I think it's awesome that you've managed to come up with some really good workarounds through experimentation.  I like mashing things up optically just for fun since you can't hurt anything.  Every once in a while, I discover something that works great like my TV Panoptic Barlow Inteface in my 2" 2X GSO ED barlow, or spacing a 2x nose piece in front of an 0.5x reducer by about 2 inches to increase TFOV with a binoviewer and still reach focus.

[Mak the Night]

10 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I think it's awesome that you've managed to come up with some really good workarounds through experimentation.  I like mashing things up optically just for fun since you can't hurt anything.  Every once in a while, I discover something that works great like my TV Panoptic Barlow Inteface in my 2" 2X GSO ED barlow, or spacing a 2x nose piece in front of an 0.5x reducer by about 2 inches to increase TFOV with a binoviewer and still reach focus.

Thanks, necessity is the mother of invention lol.

[Mak the Night]

On 12/25/2017 at 14:24, Louis D said:

Maybe no vignetting, but what about field curvature and outer edge distortion induced by the focal reducer?  I might have to try this out with my 28mm Edmund RKE for kicks sometime.

I've been thinking, a lot of whether an eyepiece vignetted or not seemed to be directly related to the focal point and eye position in relation to the eye lens. Meade, Vixen, Barsta, TeleVue and GSO Plossls of the same focal length, but with slightly different focal points, acted quite differently with a reducer.

 

A GSO 25mm Plossl hardly vignetted, but an Orion Sirius Plossl 25mm (Barsta) and a 25mm Vixen NPL both seriously vignetted. A 26mm Meade 4000 Plossl also vignettted badly. The Meade and the Vixen both have 'sunken' eye lenses.

I had to place my eye right up next to the 68° Revelation/GSO 15mm SuperView, which sometimes produced reflections from my own eye when certain filters were deployed. An 18.2mm TeleVue DeLite also showed no vignetting or distortions whatsoever. I knew the DeLite Barlowed well, but it was a bit of a surprise that it reduced so well. A 24mm TeleVue Panoptic also vignetted quite badly, yet as I said earlier, the 19mm only showed peripheral vignetting. The 68° 20mm Revelation SuperView was as bad as the 24mm Panoptic, if not worse. It could be that the 15mm focal length of the smaller SuperView was why it didn't vignette, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the 15mm SuperView is a Bertele design rather than a form of Erfle like the rest of the series. This may partially explain why the 15mm, 68° didn't vignette.

It would be interesting to hear how your 28mm Edmund RKE fares with a reducer. If you don't already have an 0.5x reducer try and obtain a GSO one rather than an Antares. A couple of years ago I acquired an Antares FR1 0.5x reducer.

There was nothing wrong with it optically, but the threads were hugely oversized. Antares had built these up with some kind of resin which soon wore away making the reducer unusable. 

This affected both sides of the reducer.

I returned mine. Later, I bought a TS Optics 0.5x reducer (which was fine), then discovered that other brands (Altair, Revelation) were half the price of the TS Optics. I bought a couple of each to compare them (intended for bino pairs). They were identical and eventually I discovered that they were all GSO. 

[JPAG]

Unfortunately I'm still very used to eyepieces with big eye relief (my Omegon LE Planetary 5mm eyepiece has a 20mm eye relief), so, at least for now, it's being difficult to me to get accustomed to the small eye relief (7.6mm) of my new KK Fujiyama HD 9mm ortho eyepiece (the 2x apo barlow slightly increases the eye relief, but not much). Touching the ortho with the eyelashes will be almost inevitable, resulting in a dirty ortho. Can anyone tell me the best method to clean it without degrading the coating layer?

[Timebandit]

1 minute ago, JPAG said:

 Touching the ortho with the eyelashes will be almost inevitable, resulting in a dirty ortho. Can anyone tell me the best method to clean it without degrading the coating layer?

 

Yes I can.

Badder Wonder Fluid IMO is the best way to clean it and use a spotlessly clean cloth , as you do not want any nasties like grit on the glass lens

 

I hope that helps ?

 

[JPAG]

15 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

 

Yes I can.

Badder Wonder Fluid IMO is the best way to clean it and use a spotlessly clean cloth , as you do not want any nasties like grit on the glass lens

 

I hope that helps ?

 

Thanks.