EP advice for planetary - do I go ortho?

[alan potts]

Many people on here have mentioned the well know Pentax XW and yes they do cost a bit but I don't agree they are pricey when you compare to the very much the same quality from TeleVue that I have. Last I saw Pentax's can be bought new from FLO for around the 250-60 pound mark where as TeleVues in the shape of Delos of similar or same F/L are around 330 pounds, now that's a fair difference. Also Pentax from German outlets are about 369 euros so whilst 250 quid is not exactly free with Cornflakes, for a buy for life eyepiece they are superb value,wish I had kept mine now.

Alan

[Mr Spock]

The best views I ever had of Mars came with Skywatcher 250/1200 and a 4mm NLV. Crisp and contrasty.

[parallaxerr]

On 1/13/2018 at 10:49, alan potts said:

I have a fairly good selection of orthos, mainly BGO's from Baader and they do give great views. The good thing about them is it doesn't cost the earth to own a few, unless we are talking of a rare few extreme high quality ones like Zeiss and supermono's. I guess like others I have to be in the mood for them as short F/L's are not easy on the eye. Like John I do tend to many times take the easier, and in my case the 3-6mm TeleVue zoom, way out.  However for the price of this you can buy a few orthos new.

Definitely sounds like a case of comfort beating performance!

On 1/13/2018 at 11:46, dweller25 said:

Hello Jon,

It may be worth bearing in mind that both planerts are not going to be very high in the sky for a few years now so views will not be great.

I am expecting to use x150-180 on Jupiter and x200-240 on Mars in my 128mm refractor - if the sky lets me !

I moved from Orthos to Pentax XW's - same detail/contrast in the XW's as the Othos but much more of a comfortable/relaxed view - that's important to me when at high powers waiting for the best moments.

Good point on postion of planets, atmosphere will most likely prevent very high powers. Comfort wins again.

23 hours ago, 25585 said:

Jon, what are still around are Vixen LVW eps in 5mm and 3.5mm focal lengths, check out ebay for pre-owned.

More than £50 sure, but 20mm eye relief, 65 deg AFOV and very near Pentax XW optical quality.

Out of my price range unfortunately and not quite the right focal length. I may have considered a 4mm at a push.

23 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Vixen SLV is probably your best value option. Comfortable, great contrast and cheap. You are looking at a planet. Why pay for 82°?

I’ve never been a big fan of Barlows. I do use them on zooms, but rarely on fixed length eyepieces. They seem like a compromise and the good ones aren’t that cheap.

Paul

SLV is still up there and I know I like them. Ghosting is my only concern.

22 hours ago, Moonshane said:

Seeing will have a more dramatic choice on the views and detail than the eyepiece chosen over the next few years for planets. I'd not overly worry and buy a decent barlow (maybe used TV 2x?) to complement what you have.

Yes already looked a barlows and was surprised to find the TVx2 cheaper than the ES x2! I've read the TV is very good and just gets out of the way?

22 hours ago, Timebandit said:

I have the 120ed equinox also , so good choice?

If you are looking for high quality Optics ,with sharpness and clarity of far more expensive eyepieces, but on the cheap. Then it has to be an Ortho. The Ortho money is spent on the quality of the eyepiece glass and not wide field or getting eyerelief. You have the likes of the  quality Fujiyama which are similar to the late great BGO in quality(Second hand around£50). There is also the BGO replacement, the Badder Classic Ortho which come up second hand around the £35 .The Ortho is the best bang for buck eyepiece out there IMO ,if you can live with the narrow fov and eyerelief.

Also to consider is the SLV , I have the Japanese version of this the predecessor NLV. It is very very close in sharpness to quality Ortho performance in optical sharpness. But it is better in FOV and around 18mm eyerelief. Just a very nice eyepiece in comfort to use in comparison to an Ortho.

I have compared my NLV 4mm to a 4mm Ortho  . In optical sharpness and clarity very little to choose between them. But in fov and especially comfort then the NLV is in a different league, so comfortable to use for extended periods at the eyepiece.

I hope this helps

Sounds like the Vixens are able to compete well with the orthos with comfort winning again.

 

OK, the overwhelming impression I'm getting is yes, orthos are great for the views but many users take the more comfortable route. It also sounds like the ES's aren't a million miles away and my first consideration - SLV's, would be a safe bet.

The 4mm UWAN is available for less than the SLVs and a TeleVue x2 barlow is more affordable than I thought.

I don't think there's a bad choice to be made here. 4mm UWAN, 4mm SLV, TV x2 barlow or ES82° 4.7mm are all going to put in the same ballpark mag wise.

 

[Timebandit]

42 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

The best views I ever had of Mars came with Skywatcher 250/1200 and a 4mm NLV. Crisp and contrasty.

 

 

That does not surprise me at all. A great eyepiece IMO , since I purchased mine about 2 years ago I have not seen another one come up for sale. I am not sure if it's because not many were sold at the very short focal length of 4mm ,and the longer focal lengths were more popular. So they are a rarity due to lack of volume sold. Or it's because people with the 4mm know how good they are ,so just don't sell them on?

Either way my 4mm is not going anywhere. It lives alongside my Pentax 3.5XW and Pentax 5mm XW and these are top class performers and certainly optically the vixen 4mm  deserves its place in the case.

 

 

 

[parallaxerr]

16 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Orthos & Plossls are great for planetary observing, and if the eye relief of the shorter focal lengths is problematic, then use longer focal lengths with a barlow.

I had this thought last night before reading your post Mike. I found the barrel for my doublet barlow to make it x2 so a few plossls around the 8-10mm range may be an idea, maintaining usable eye relief and minimal glass. Vixen NPLs can be found on sale at the moment for £34......

16 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I've not used ES eyepieces so can't comment on their performance for planetary use, though I'd be surprised if they weren't good performers. The 4mm Nirvana which is no longer in production, but is still being offered by some vendors, is an amazing eyepiece for observing Saturn, and has an 82° field sharp to the edge.

The Nirvana is very tempting. It hits the FL target I'd like without the use of a barlow and keeps the 82° FoV I'm used to with the ES82°s. Found a new one for £89 fairly local.

16 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Most eyepieces today are pretty good and if you're not careful you can end up chasing your tail in search of what you already have. If however you want one or two really great planetary eyepieces that will give a lifetime of pleasure, then a 5mm and 3.5mm Pentax XW would be a hard act to beat. Ideal for your 120ED! 

 

I think this will be the long term goal once this year's out of the way and childcare costs settle down a bit. Perhaps something to aim for around 2020 when the planets start rise a bit higher.

[Mr Spock]

17 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

That does not surprise me at all. A great eyepiece IMO , since I purchased mine about 2 years ago I have not seen another one come up for sale. I am not sure if it's because not many were sold at the very short focal length of 4mm ,and the longer focal lengths were more popular. So they are a rarity due to lack of volume sold. Or it's because people with the 4mm know how good they are ,so just don't sell them on?

I only sold mine because I switched to a C9.25. x588 isn't really usable in UK conditions!

[mikeDnight]

Child Care Costs settling down! I admire your optimism!!  

[25585]

Jon, I do not own any ES but a 40mm Maxview "Colossus" so don't know how they are, but if you have mainly ES eps, might the short fl one be parfocal with your others? Ranging down to smaller FOV and high mag, parfocal would be a good reason to choose another ep for a series you already have.

[parallaxerr]

Well the astronomy forecast is rubbish for the next week so I decided to do a little daylight testing this afternoon. I tried my existing ES82° EP's in combination with x1.5 & x2 barlow on the highest contrast target I could find, which was the roofline of the house across the road against the grey but fairly bright sky.

I specifically wanted to see if the barlow introduced any abberations so started off with the ES 8.8 & 6.7mm on their own. Both were sharp and colour free on axis with a slight bit of CA in the last 5-10% of the FoV. Adding the barlow seemed to reduce the CA a touch, at least it was no worse so I was happy with that. However, the image softened somewhat and what became immediatley obvious were the floaters in my eyes down at around 0.5mm exit pupil.

I also tried a stock 10mm SW Plossl to test out eye relief, t'was tighter than I'd like. The image was nicely sharp alone but pretty poor when barlowed. The reduced FoV felt very restrictive.

Conclusions: I think the short eye relief of Plossls will annoy me after using the ES's and quite possibly result in some eye strain. I've been spoiled with an 82° FoV so 50° is appealing less.

If I were to barlow the ES's, I'd need a better barlow but it adds more glass to the light path, plus barlowing down to 3.4-4.4mm resulted in lots of floaters visible. My target of 4mm may be a bit optimistic, I wonder if the floaters will likely be less noticeable at night?

It's all pointing towards the ES82° 4.7mm. This will give about x190 mag which is probably more than enough while the planets are low and maintains a respectable exit pupil of 0.63mm, keeping the floaters at bay. The added bonus is parfocality as @25585 mentions and it completes my line up of ES82°'s as I dropped to the 68°s from 16mm up.

There, just got to pull the trigger now.....

[Charic]

On 13/01/2018 at 09:48, parallaxerr said:

But what's got me thinking about dedicated planetary pieces is the amount of glass in the ES82°s, is it too much.

 

Second hand TeleVue Plössl's would be a suitable planetary eyepiece containing little glass, if you wanted a branded quality EP, but they stop short at 8mm which is almost twice the focal length your needing.

I tried the TV Plössl's myself and initially disliked the eye relief, and after trying several other Plössl's, settled for the cheap but capable Revelations, and they go down to 4mm. It could be the cheapest option to try the short focal length, and I believe they have 52° afov.

35 minutes ago, parallaxerr said:

Conclusions: I think the short eye relief of Plossls will annoy me after using the ES's and quite possibly result in some eye strain. I've been spoiled with an 82° FoV so 50° is appealing less.

At the end of the day comfort is what its all about. The scope itself will produce an image at the focal plane.
No matter how bad that image is, the eyepiece cant make the image any better.  The purpose of the eyepiece is to magnify the image at the focal plane in order to see it, so the more comfortable that experience, the better it is for the end user.
In my case, I honestly though those TeleVue Delos eyepieces were going to 'improve' my setup, yet no, not really. The eye-lens was bigger, the eye relief longer infact 20mm for each EP, but they were just not reasonably worthwhile the expense or gave me any visual improvement over   what I already have in my collection.  

I've never tried the ES eyepieces, but folk that have seem to favour them, stick with what you know, but a trial no matter the cost is worthwhile, even if you have to return!

Whatever you choose, clear skies.

[ASSA]

4 hours ago, Charic said:

No matter how bad that image is, the eyepiece cant make the image any better.

Yeah, but can make the image worse. Thats why orthos are one of the Best EPs for planetary viewing caus they have Just 2 glass/air paths and Just 4 elements. More glass = less contrast, thats a fact.

In term of comfort IMO you dont choose eyepiece, eyepiece choose you. Pentax SMC dont give me that comfort of viewing than a pair of Vixen ortho 12.5 mm.

In UWAN 4 mm you cant even See all field of view so IMO is more than you need for planets;)

Barlowing 9 mm HD ortho it would be my choice. 

[John]

13 minutes ago, ASSA said:

Yeah, but can make the image worse. Thats why orthos are one of the Best EPs for planetary viewing caus they have Just 2 glass/air paths and Just 4 elements. More glass = less contrast, thats a fact.

In term of comfort IMO you dont choose eyepiece, eyepiece choose you. Pentax SMC dont give me that comfort of viewing than a pair of Vixen ortho 12.5 mm.

In UWAN 4 mm you cant even See all field of view so IMO is more than you need for planets;)

Barlowing 9 mm HD ortho it would be my choice. 

If you use an ortho with a barlow then you have 6 elements (or more) with 6 glass to air surfaces. Just 1 less element than the UWAN 4mm or the ES 4.7mm 

 

[Charic]

5 hours ago, ASSA said:

Yeah, but can make the image worse. Thats why orthos are one of the Best EPs for planetary viewing caus they have Just 2 glass/air paths and Just 4 elements. More glass = less contrast, thats a fact.

None of the eyepieces sold in my signature block made the image worse on my scope, but then none showed any real improvement either, so selling them on was not an issue, even the 'Best' Orthoscopics.
What is best? Best for you maybe, but not for me, thats an issue that folk just need to contend with! what suits one individual may not suit the next, even if they have the same telescope setup! Choosing eyepieces is not straightforward, never will be. I'm not saying Orthoscopics are bad, their just not for me, its quoted that they do provide good  images, and provide better eye relief than a Plössl for the end user, but the field of view is very tight, much less than 50° which is fine for small targets, but for me, just like looking through a pipe.

I'm lucky in a way having an f/6 scope, eyepiece selection is not so critical than say if I had a fast  f/4 scope, whereas some eyepieces in that scope may add aberrations to the final view, but my point about not improving the image is  simply related to the fact that the eyepiece's sole purpose is to magnify the image at the focal plane to a size that is visible to the naked eye, if that image is poor to start with, due to the type/condition/setup of the scope itself, or  poor conditions, then spending sums of money on a 'better' lens just will not change the fact that the image is poor in the first place.

"Which Eyepiece Advice'  type threads are always interesting, folk could discuss the pro's/con's for a year, and still have differing opinions and views (excuse the pun) as regards to which one is the....................? 

[laowhoo]

On 1/13/2018 at 17:40, mikeDnight said:

Have you tried, or considered using a binoviewer? If you are happy with binoviewers you can use some long fl eyepieces to obtain a large image scale, if a x2 barlow is screwed to its nose piece. Binoviewing somehow seems to ease the effects of atmospheric turbulence, and when eye separation and individual eyepieces are focused, can offer a very relaxed way of planetary and lunar viewing. And simple, cheap eyepieces perform like the finest super mono's at a fraction of the cost!

 

We binoview and  do not have go-to and wanted an ortho in our kit so opted for it in an 18mm where eye relief was eased and magnification equaled average conditions here. When things are good we can Barlow them (still better than a Barlowed 6-element). And it's partly b/c of manual that we've kept our higher mag EPs at wide field. There are several factors that will come into play. Would we rather have had the 8.8mm in an ortho? Sure, but it wouldn't have been nearly as manageable given our situation.

[ASSA]

10 hours ago, John said:

If you use an ortho with a barlow then you have 6 elements (or more) with 6 glass to air surfaces. Just 1 less element than the UWAN 4mm or the ES 4.7mm

Price / quality. The author of the subject, if I understood correctly, has a 2x barlow, all you need to do is buy an ortho eyepiece. Now, let's think about buying ES or UWAN for these 10 observations, and he also wrote that money plays a big role.
I would buy a 4 or 5 mm ortho for myself, but that's just for myself and I would be sure that I'm pulling out the max for this tube. The author of what he writes does not like a small field and a short ER so there is nothing to talk about.
But the subject is "do i go ortho"? So I am thinking that he was considering going this way.
Everyone likes something else but proposing Pentax, TeleVue and other expensive glasses to someone who cares about money is a bit pointless. Maybe I have not completely understood all the posts in the subject, my English is not at the best level so if you think I'm writing stupid and not on the subject, ignore the post;)
Clear skies
Lukas

Quote

None of the eyepieces sold in my signature block made the image worse on my scope, but then none showed any real improvement either, so selling them on was not an issue, even the 'Best' Orthoscopics.

I dont see "Real Ortho" in your signature block. BCO's in many reviews are far far behind the orthos like Fujiyama, BGO, UO (we have a lot of them in Polish community). They are closer to Vixen Plossl than to them. I Dont say any word about Delos because i dont know anythink about them.

[mikeDnight]

Super Abbe Orthoscopics, which are sold here in the UK by several vendors, are amazing value for money. It's true that they don't gel well with short F ratio scopes, but when barlowed or used as a bino pair they give painfully sharp lunar and planetary views. They are in their comfort zone in longer focal length scopes! Ive used a pair of Super Abbe 16.8mm's in my binoviewer with X2 barlow for the last 9yrs and i wouldnt part with them!

365 astronomy usually has them in stock for under £40 each!

 

[mikeDnight]

There's a 11mm Televue plossl for sale on SGL for £45. WOW!

It's a sharp eyepiece with exceptional clarity, and I'd buy it myself had I not already got two for bino use!

 

[YKSE]

45 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Super Abbe Orthoscopics, which are sold here in the UK by several vendors, are amazing value for money. It's true that they don't gel well with short F ratio scopes, but when barlowed or used as a bino pair they give painfully sharp lunar and planetary views. They are in their comfort zone in longer focal length scopes! Ive used a pair of Super Abbe 16.8mm's in my binoviewer with X2 barlow for the last 9yrs and i wouldnt part with them!

365 astronomy usually has them in stock for under £40 each!

"The last 9yrs"? was it a typo?

I have the impression that there was a period of time without abbe orthos on the market before BCO came out in the end the 2012, and these Supper Abbe orthos came out some years after BCO, at least in TS's website which I visit regularly.

[Stu]

3 hours ago, ASSA said:

I dont see "Real Ortho" in your signature block. BCO's in many reviews are far far behind the orthos like Fujiyama, BGO, UO

The reviews I've read of the BCOs have them pretty close to the BGOs, one or two (10mm?) are rated even higher for light transmission I recall. 'Far, far behind' does not seem correct, which reviews did you see?

[ASSA]

http://astromaniak.pl/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=29297

1st random one.

 

Edit: the subject goes down the sidetrack, thus we will not help the friend choose the eyepiece. Checks out;)

[mikeDnight]

47 minutes ago, YKSE said:

"The last 9yrs"? was it a typo?

I have the impression that there was a period of time without abbe orthos on the market before BCO came out in the end the 2012, and these Supper Abbe orthos came out some years after BCO, at least in TS's website which I visit regularly.

No it wasn't a typo, though it may have been eight years. It's just a rough date! The Abbes back then had KSON stamped on them, but they seem to be available under several other brand names, but are the same eyepiece.

[JeremyS]

23 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

The best views I ever had of Mars came with Skywatcher 250/1200 and a 4mm NLV. Crisp and contrasty.

That's how I would refer to my best Mars view ever, through my Tak FS102 with a Pentax XP3.8 eyepiece (x 215). This was during the perihelic opposition in 2003, but I was observing from Singapore, where the planet was very high up in the sky. I still regret selling this eyepiece - I'd love to buy it back. It gave wonderful views of Jupiter too.

Jeremy

[25585]

21 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

Well the astronomy forecast is rubbish for the next week so I decided to do a little daylight testing this afternoon. I tried my existing ES82° EP's in combination with x1.5 & x2 barlow on the highest contrast target I could find, which was the roofline of the house across the road against the grey but fairly bright sky.

I specifically wanted to see if the barlow introduced any abberations so started off with the ES 8.8 & 6.7mm on their own. Both were sharp and colour free on axis with a slight bit of CA in the last 5-10% of the FoV. Adding the barlow seemed to reduce the CA a touch, at least it was no worse so I was happy with that. However, the image softened somewhat and what became immediatley obvious were the floaters in my eyes down at around 0.5mm exit pupil.

I also tried a stock 10mm SW Plossl to test out eye relief, t'was tighter than I'd like. The image was nicely sharp alone but pretty poor when barlowed. The reduced FoV felt very restrictive.

Conclusions: I think the short eye relief of Plossls will annoy me after using the ES's and quite possibly result in some eye strain. I've been spoiled with an 82° FoV so 50° is appealing less.

If I were to barlow the ES's, I'd need a better barlow but it adds more glass to the light path, plus barlowing down to 3.4-4.4mm resulted in lots of floaters visible. My target of 4mm may be a bit optimistic, I wonder if the floaters will likely be less noticeable at night?

It's all pointing towards the ES82° 4.7mm. This will give about x190 mag which is probably more than enough while the planets are low and maintains a respectable exit pupil of 0.63mm, keeping the floaters at bay. The added bonus is parfocality as @25585 mentions and it completes my line up of ES82°'s as I dropped to the 68°s from 16mm up.

There, just got to pull the trigger now.....

They are a good range. I like the Nitrogen purged aspect as well. 4.7mm price is relatively low compared to other makes for such a wide FOV.

[YKSE]

1 hour ago, ASSA said:

http://astromaniak.pl/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=29297

1st random one.

 

Edit: the subject goes down the sidetrack, thus we will not help the friend choose the eyepiece. Checks out;)

Google translation doesn't give the judgement "far, far behind"? Rather, it said 10mm BCO seemed to have better coatings to give impression of brighter image than 9mm BGO?

[Stu]

3 minutes ago, YKSE said:

Google translation doesn't give the judgement "far, far behind"? Rather, it said 10mm BCO seemed to have better coatings to give impression of brighter image than 9mm BGO?

Yes, that's what I understood from it too Yong. The 10mm BCO has a very good reputation.