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Televue plossls


Jamesruss13

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Hi guys I am looking for info on televue plossls, after a lot of research on different eyepieces I would really like to get a few tvs, being the best of the best of course lol, I know they are the cheaper of the ranges but I’ve not heard a bad word about them, I will defiantly be looking to get some of the more expensive televue ranges to add to the kit when funds allow but to start with I can afford a few plossls, Scope will be a skywatcher ED80 strictly observing for now, imaging maybe at a later date. The things I’m going to be observing are planets, lunar and a few of the brighter DSOs such as M42, M31, The pleadies... just to name a few. Any advice on these eyepieces would be great, also I’m not a fan of the ‘pin hole’ type exit pupil on higher mag eyepieces so may opt for a different brand on focal lengths under 10mm 

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I have a set of TV plossls  (8mm-32mm) and they are very good eyepieces.

I use them in an ED80 for astronomy and in a spotting scope for terrestial viewing.

Excellent eyepiece to start with and most people go for the 11mm and upwards.

They are often for sale used on SGL and ABS, so keep looking and see if you can bag some at a reasonable price.

 

Tony

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The TV plossl range is a great step into the world of quality eyepieces, but at sensible money IMO.

The TV plossl has a fov of 50d and variable eye relief depending on the focal length. The 8mm is quite tight on eye relief which some people do not get on with.

The quality of the TV plossl optics are very good, tested down to f/ 4 . The sharpness of view I have personally found very good . 

A quality eyepiece at realistic money IMO

 

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The TV Plossl range is very worthy of the praise it receives.
The eye relief gets quite short from 11mm downwards.

They have a wonderful clarity, good light transmission and good contrast to my eye.

I own the 25, 20, 15 and 11.

I did own the 32mm a while ago, bought new.
The 32mm has much longer eye-relief and I found it too long myself.
Rectified with an eye cup extender sold by Televue but cost another £30+
I bought two TV Plossl and then tried some Vixen SLV all 50 degree eyepieces, bought all the SLV and I sold the SLV and then bought all my TV Plossl in preference used..

Use them in  both my ED80 refractor and 150P f5 Newtonian and they are excellent in both.

I have developed a liking for wider field of view of late, but use both depending on how I feel and what I am observing.

Will never sell my TV Plossl set and may add to it yet, I like them that much.

In the place of the 8mm TV Plossl I have a Takahashi LE 7.5mm, which is a great eyepiece and has longer eyerelief than the 8mm TV Plossl.

You will not regret buying them, especially if you buy used.
Look on here, Astro Buy Sell and eBay.
eBay has some listed at present.
 

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I have pretty much all the TV plossl's that are available between 8mm-40mm. A rock solid eyepiece in all my scopes, the only temptation to change is to another TV eyepiece. They Barlow nicely as well, so a decent Barlow would effectively double your eyepiece collection.

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Don't be afraid of using a Barlow with your longer focal length plossls. Modern barlows are superb and will help maintain long eye relief with your eyepieces. Many modern multi element designs of short focal length have barlows already built into the eyepiece, so don't be influenced by damning reports in old literature. Barlows are a great addition to an eyepiece collection!

 

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Hi, James, and happy new year!

I wonder why you exclude all other types and brands of eyepieces. For the price of the least expensive Tele Vue Plössls you could have one of these:

https://www.astroshop.de/astro-professional-uwa-ultra-weitwinkel-okular-82d-16mm-1-25-/p,54981

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p8989_TS-Optics-Optics-1-25--Ultra-Weitwinkel-Okular-UWAN-4mm--82--Gesichtsfeld.html

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p8988_TS-Optics-Optics-1-25--Ultra-Weitwinkel-Okular-UWAN-7mm--82--Gesichtsfeld.html

And while they're not Tele Vue's, they are clones of the Nagler 82° eyepieces, which are a Tele Vue design. An 82° eyepiece shows you 2.7 times as much sky area as a 50° eyepiece. I own five 82° clones, all very sharp and contrasty. When I and a friend compared my 150€ Meade/Maxvision 24/82 to a 600€ Tele Vue 26/82 the only plus the Tele Vue had was some barely noticeable extra transparency, seen only after much going back and forth from one eyepiece to the other.

And we had to poll our findings together for a long time before confirming the TV is indeed a tiny bit more transparent. But all other qualities were the same, same edge sharpness, same curvature of field, same contrast. The difference didn't matter, really, because a barely detectable effect in a shootout does not change anything in everyday use.

You seem to think all other brands are inferior, but no, they're just less innovative. Tele Vue creates, and others follow. Like when Sky-Watcher issued the 100° and 110° Myriads after Tele Vue's Ethos. I have three of them, could never afford Ethos. I took them to the observatory, a friend who owns an Ethos (didn't have it with him this night) said quality of view was essentially the same.

So, think carefully before you commit money. All other big optics makers provide very sharp and contrasty optics.

2.7 times as much sky, remember.

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Some great advice guys thanks a lot, will be sure to get a Barlow aswell! The only negative I can think of on the plossls is the field of view and only because Im used to observing with a pair of 10x50 bins on a tripod and have been for over a year now so would like as wide a field of view as one can get, with that said I suppose I could bite the bullet and get an expensive very low focal length eyepiece, something that will provide 10x 15x or even 20x mag for when I would like a ‘sky scanning’ session as I would do with the bins, maybe an ES 82 degree eyepiece or just one of the better TV range. With higher mags I know a lot of people don’t get on with the eye relief and I expect I will feel the same so may opt for BST starguiders at high mags, televue plossls in between and an expensive low power eyepiece with as much a field of view as I can get and a quality ( most probably TV) Barlow. Thanks guys any other advice regarding eyepieces is much appreciated! 

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The TV's are good, they do cost a bit new, and although used sounds nice I suggest you put a Wanted ad up. If you wait for someone to advertise some for sale you have to both wait and be the person that gets in there first.

TV plossl's go down to 8mm, Al stopped there and I can half understand why, eye relief gets a problem below that and I suspect field curvature, at either the object or image plane, does also.

Alternatives are likely the Vixen NPL's. Always reported as good - except for the outer housing which some compalin of feeling plasticky. Which as I suspect they are a hard plastic moulding and the optics as a tube assembly are inserted into this kind of makes sense.

Watch the costs as even the Vixen NPLs are getting to match the BST's, and the BST's may lose out on overall sharpness and clarity but they are close and they are comfoprable easy to get along with eyepieces.

It will depend on what you want, and it may not be simple. Also may take a few eyepieces to come to a conclusion.

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To echo Ben’s point. The ED80 is a chunky little wide field wonder. It’s strength is showing vast tracts of sky. Why constrain it with 50° Plossles. I’ve got a few TV Plossles and had a full set of the BCO’s. Both are exceptionally clear eyepieces. But they never really got used in the ED80.

The ES 82° Range does well in that scope. Or, there are several great performers for sensible money at the 68° interval.

Paul

Edited by Paul73
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3 hours ago, Paul73 said:

To echo Ben’s point. The ED80 is a chunky little wide field wonder. It’s strength is showing vast tracts of sky. Why constrain it with 50° Plossles. 

Another good point and something i was thinking myself... one of the reasons the ED80 is my idea of a dream scope is the wide field it produces, as a keen bino observer I wanted something I can still just sit back and scan the wonders of the sky with and something with better optics than I’m used to in my bins and something that I can up the mag with ( obviously being constricted to 10x with the bins). what would people recommend in terms of wide field eyepieces ( low and high power) I really like the look and the price for that matter of the BST’s. Also with low power eyepieces I’d like to take advantage of the 2inch diaganol and get as full a view as one can get, that’s why I’m willling to spend quite a bit on my lowest power eyepiece something between 30 and 40mm. Has anyone tried these out?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-panaview-2-eyepieces.html

Edited by Jamesruss13
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I have a couple of TV plossl eyepieces and would have bought the 8mm had I not found the 11mm a little difficult with the combination of eye relief and design of the area where you look through the eyepiece. This I found somewhat strange as I don't have too much of an issue with a 5mm Hutech orthoscopic. Maybe something to bear in mind if your going that low in F/L.

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I have the 32mm Panaview and it is a really nice eyepiece with sharp stars virtually to the edge in my f/6 8" Dob.

There used to be a good review of the 38mm on the Astro-Baby website, but I can't find it any more, but there is a review here:

Ade

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14 hours ago, ronin said:

TV plossl's go down to 8mm, Al stopped there and I can half understand why, eye relief gets a problem below that and I suspect field curvature, at either the object or image plane, does also.

Is field curvature not an issue which affects long focal length eyepieces more? I though higher mags tended not to suffer from it. Certainly the times I have seen it have been with ultra wide field eyepieces in short focal length fracs so I suspect an 8mm Plossl would not.

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I recently acquired a 25mm, two 11mm and a 7.4mm. It was a bit of a gamble as to whether I'd get along with the eleven in my binoviewer and the 7.4 due to its minimal eye relief, but as I bought them all second-hand I thought I'd give them a try. Last night was clear and so gave me an opportunity to try them out for the first time. The seeing was a little unsteady but not crippling to the image. My first view through the 25mm was of the Pleiades and it told me all I needed to know. The stars were pinpoint except right at the field edge, and there was a quality to the view that's hard to define. The moon looked sharp with no CA around the limb. The 11mm's in the binoviewer gave a great view of the Moon. I worried a little about how useful they would be, especially as they have short eye relief, but in practice they were comfortable and amazingly sharp  considering they were giving me a power of around X269. In mono use at X67, the 11mm TV plossl gave a very pleasing view of both the Moon and M42. Next I moved to the 7.4mm which I thought would be my least favourite of the bunch. Not so! Aimed at M42 and the trapezium the 7.4 immediately revealed the E star without effort, though the F star wasn't having any of it. The night was a bit wobbly after all!  After purposefully ridding myself of my large and weighty eyepieces in preference for smaller, simpler, yet still high quality designs, I think I could settle down with TV plossls as very good all round eyepieces. And as long as I resist reading any of Johns or Bill P's eyepiece reviews regarding other designs, I think I'll be content for some time. :icon_biggrin:

2018-01-05 08.36.31.jpg

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32 minutes ago, Alan White said:

So what Plossl's are you using for Mono viewing now Mike?

This is my current collection which is constantly in flux, but not all plossls. I use a Baader 35mm Eudiascopic,  which I think is more than a standard plossl but similar. Then a 25mm TV plossl, two 16.8mm ortho's which work well with a barlow in mono form. Two 15mm Vixen LV's, two 11mm TV plossls also great for mono use. A 7.4mm TV plossl, a 4mm Nirvana which is truly superb for observing Saturn - sharp to the very edge and amazingly contrasty! Finally I have a 2.5mm Vixen LV. I may consider selling the LV's in the future although they are very nice eyepieces and I like them a lot, so it will need some careful thought first. I've just sold a 20mm and 5mm Ultrascopic though I'm not sure why, as I really liked them. I think I must have been bored over silly season and needed something to do!

The Eudiascopic and the TV 25mm plossl will have a permanent home with me!

Edited by mikeDnight
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1 minute ago, mikeDnight said:

I think I must have been bored over silly season and needed something to do!

Christmas does odd things to Astronomers.
The LV's are an eyepiece I would like to try, liked the SLV, but hated the twist up eyecup design.
The LV's may be the best of both?

The TV Plossl are such a nice EP to 11mm.
 

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2 hours ago, Alan White said:

Christmas does odd things to Astronomers.
The LV's are an eyepiece I would like to try, liked the SLV, but hated the twist up eyecup design.
The LV's may be the best of both?

The TV Plossl are such a nice EP to 11mm.
 

Though I have sold most of my LV eps due to buying LVWs, I have kept my 9mm and 20mm ones, as in pairs for a bino viewer. Their eye relief is better than SLV eps due to roll down eye cup. Sharp images from edge to edge and low weight but 50 deg FOV. Usually affordable in 25mm down focal lengths on ebay etc. 

Edited by 25585
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