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I'm in love!


Geoff Barnes

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My post in the "What Did The Postman Bring" thread seemed to get a bit lost during the forum's temporary paralysis yesterday, but now I've had first light with my new Baader Morpheus 6.5mm EP I just want to say WOW, I'm in love!

I took a chance with buying it as I feared it may be too powerful in my 12 inch Dob and objects might be a tad fuzzy, but no way, it is simply stunning!

My Baader 8-24mm zoom is great and gives sharp views with good contrast on the planets, but I just wanted to tease as much detail as possible, and the 6.5mm Morpheus delivers in spades!

I've just spent an hour or so exclusively on Jupiter and at 230x the detail was unbelievable. All the surface features, equatorial and temperate belts, festoons and barges all on display, and colours, such colours that I'd never seen before, and to top it off the GRS was in central position and glowing bright orange/red. No, actually what topped it off was little Io passing in front of the disc and crossing along the very top edge of the NEB and glowing bright white against the brownish red background. I was able to keep it in view for about 15 minutes before it blended into the white north tropical zone.

I had a quick look at Saturn before I had to finish and was delighted to clearly see the Cassini Division, really sharply etched black against the white rings. The Equatorial Zone was distinctly separated from the North Equatorial Belt and Tropical Zone. I tried counting the moons and saw 7 or 8, but can't be sure one or two may have been faint stars.

What can I say? If you need an EP in the 6mm-7mm range, giving razor sharp views with generous eye relief and giving that "space walk" feeling, this is an absolute gem!

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Thanks for the post Geoff, your impressions are certainly very helpful. I am considering getting that exact eyepiece (spookily,  Paul, for my SW 120ED also ...) I am looking for something between my 5mm (180x ) and 8.8mm(102x) and really fancy the comfort the Morpheus' are supposed to have. Wide fields are great ... when you can actually see it all (Explore Scientific 82 degree - I am talking about you ?)

Gordon

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8 hours ago, Joves said:

Nice report Geoff, makes me want to get the scope out. 

Do you feel the overall quality of image, aside from scale, is equal or better than that from the zoom?

That's a very good question Joves. The Baader zoom as you no doubt know is an excellent EP, and pretty sharp right down to the 8mm FL, if only they made a 6-24mm zoom the comparison would be easier to make. Obviously making an image larger in the eyepiece tends to make any object easier to view and see more detail, but quality of image wise is hard to judge. I've only had one session with the 6.5mm Morpheus and didn't do any extensive side by side comparisons at the time, so judgement is difficult. I can say that the 6.5mm does display some slight distortion around the outer 10% or so of the FOV in my F5 Dob, but it was minimal and why bother concentrating on the edges when you have such a large window to look through anyway? 90% of the image was astonishingly good. If I had to put my finger on one aspect that impressed me most with the Morpheus it would be the colours that I saw through it on the Jovian surface, just amazing! Even on Saturn, which doesn't tend to have a lot of colour on the disc I could clearly make out the subtle differences in the various zones. I hope to make more comparisons in due course as weather permits.

I might add that's an amazing collection of astro gear you have in your signature, you could open a shop! ?

 

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Great response, thanks Geoff. Sounds like the Morpheus is a fantastic eyepiece. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the Hyperion zoom. So much so, that it is often the main eyepiece sitting in which ever scope I’m using. That could be moreso due to my laziness though ?

Thanks. My signature is pretty ridiculous, to be honest. It’s more of a reminder to myself of the main gear I have than really trying to put it on display. It started with only a couple of items and then just kind of grew from there. What is even more ridiculous though is that the vast majority of it never really gets any use. Someday, I’m sure...

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On 23/09/2018 at 00:52, Joves said:

Thanks. My signature is pretty ridiculous, to be honest. It’s more of a reminder to myself of the main gear I have than really trying to put it on display. It started with only a couple of items and then just kind of grew from there. What is even more ridiculous though is that the vast majority of it never really gets any use. Someday, I’m sure...

Please feel free to pass the FS128 this way Aaron, I can solve the usage problem for you ??

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On 21/09/2018 at 19:38, Louis D said:

My 9mm Morpheus seems about the equal of my 10mm Delos.  The edges aren't quite as sharp, but it's also 4 degrees wider.

Here in the UK the Morpheus is also half the price of the Delos?. Geoff, it's great to hear how you rate the shorter FL 6.5mm so highly as well?.

 

On 21/09/2018 at 19:48, GordonD said:

Thanks for the post Geoff, your impressions are certainly very helpful. I am considering getting that exact eyepiece (spookily,  Paul, for my SW 120ED also ...) I am looking for something between my 5mm (180x ) and 8.8mm(102x) and really fancy the comfort the Morpheus' are supposed to have. Wide fields are great ... when you can actually see it all (Explore Scientific 82 degree - I am talking about you ?)

Gordon

Gordon,

I have owned the 14mm Morpheus (I sold my Pentax XW soon after buying it as the Morpheus was significantly superior). I regretted selling it but when the chance of a mint FS128 came along 18months ago, most of my gear had to go to finance it (and I don't regret that one bit).

I now have the new 17.5mm and it's fantastic in my FS128. The previous weak spot of the poor eye cup has been fully rectified and the new screw on eyecup is great, as is the additional winged eyeguard. I'm seriously considering another 17.5 for binoviewer as a friend has a pair and is thrilled with them.

It's taken a while, but I now feel that the Morpheus range is beginning to get the praise that it deserves...it has brought new, top end performance eyepieces at much more affordable prices.

Dave

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1 hour ago, F15Rules said:

I have owned the 14mm Morpheus (I sold my Pentax XW soon after buying it as the Morpheus was significantly superior).

Curious.?  I found the 14mm Morpheus to be about the same as my Pentax XL as far as center sharpness and contrast, but both have similar amounts of field curvature requiring refocusing the edge.  However, once refocused, the edge of the XL is astigmatism free while there is noticeable astigmatism in the Morpheus at best focus.  Is there residual astigmatism at the edge of the XW?  Is the XW field significantly more curved than the Morpheus?  I gave the win to the Morpheus mostly based on its 76 degree field being nicely larger than the XL's 65 degree field.  Of course, that 76 degree field seems rather restrictive when I switch to it from either of my ES-92s.

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Louis,

As always of course, it's down to personal preference. And I'm a big fan of Pentax eyepieces..I still have an XL 10.5mm and it's one of my 3 favourite EPs,along with my Morph 17.5 and LVW 22mm. At and below 10mm, I think they are hard to beat. But I had both the XW 14 and XW20 and found them both to have a lot of FC in my scope at the time (Vixen ED103s).

I have another ED103s now, and my FS128,and to my eyes there was/is littleFC from the Morpheus or the LVW, whilst in the XW14 and 20 there was significant FC, such that I sold both the XWs and haven't missed them. I compared the XW20 and LVW 22 at some length, especially on M42 and the Trap, and in every metric except FOV I preferred the LVW22.

Fave

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Louis,

As always of course, it's down to personal preference. And I'm a big fan of Pentax eyepieces..I still have an XL 10.5mm and it's one of my 3 favourite EPs,along with my Morph 17.5 and LVW 22mm. At and below 10mm, I think they are hard to beat. But I had both the XW 14 and XW20 and found them both to have a lot of FC in my scope at the time (Vixen ED103s).

I have another ED103s now, and my FS128,and to my eyes there was/is littleFC from the Morpheus or the LVW, whilst in the XW14 and 20 there was significant FC, such that I sold both the XWs and haven't missed them. I compared the XW20 and LVW 22 at some length, especially on M42 and the Trap, and in every metric except FOV I preferred the LVW22.

Dave

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3 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I'm seriously considering another 17.5 for binoviewer as a friend has a pair and is thrilled with them.

I tried that with XWs and I found that the wide FoV is wasted in the left-right direction (with respect to your head). Beyond the 60° or so you can see by looking straight ahead you're actually only monoviewing which defeats the point a bit. 

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6 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I now have the new 17.5mm and it's fantastic in my FS128.

Dave thanks for a lot for your input - very helpful. I have read elsewhere how impressed people are with the 17.5mm. And the primary use for mine would be in a 120mm/F7.5 refractor, so your thoughts are very relevant. Maybe I need the 6.5mm AND the 17.5mm. Interesting use of the word 'Need', of course .....

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2 hours ago, Ricochet said:

I tried that with XWs and I found that the wide FoV is wasted in the left-right direction (with respect to your head). Beyond the 60° or so you can see by looking straight ahead you're actually only monoviewing which defeats the point a bit. 

That sounds to me as though your IPD distance isn't correct..if your setting is optimised you should be able to close both eyes, one at a time, and see a similar view in each (allowing for the physically different positioning of each eye).

What I do is open the binoviewer hinge (for Maxbright type viewers) or in the case of mine, slide a hydraulic mechanism which  gently pushes the eyepiece holders' smoothly apart, until the view merges from two images into one. 

I can get the whole field of view comfortably with my eyepieces but a) they are only 40-52 degrees and b) I use winged eyecups which cut out extraneous light, but more importantly help me to hold my eye position comfortably..this is especially important with longer eye relief eyepieces like XW (20mm ER) and Morpheus (similar ER).

I'm no expert with binoviewer and they do take some getting used to, but when you get it righht and the view just "clicks", then my goodness there is a Wow factor!

Last night I had a short 40 minute session on just the waning Moon, specifically looking at Plato. It was still very very brightly illuminated, but seeing was good and I saw one central craterlet and suspected 2 or 3 more as minute points of light. The limiting factor was my eyes with floaters as I pushed the magnification up, so for me the best power was c x175 -200. The scope could have gone a good deal higher though, and I look forward to seeing Plato again when the illumination is better contrast-wise☺

Dave

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4 minutes ago, GordonD said:

Dave thanks for a lot for your input - very helpful. I have read elsewhere how impressed people are with the 17.5mm. And the primary use for mine would be in a 120mm/F7.5 refractor, so your thoughts are very relevant. Maybe I need the 6.5mm AND the 17.5mm. Interesting use of the word 'Need', of course .....

Gordon, I know what you mean..and if you get into binoviewing the problem is twice as bad!!

Dave

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1 hour ago, Ricochet said:

That's what I thought to start with but there was no position that I could find that worked for the entire field. 

If you look straight ahead and concentrate on your peripheral vision, you should be able to perceive the outer field in 65+ degree AFOV eyepieces.  However, the moment you try to look directly at the edge, you will necessarily lose the view in one eyepiece without a lot of readjustment of your head position to try and hold both exit pupils simultaneously while your eyeball is aimed off to the side.  That's why I stick to 60 degree AFOV eyepieces for binoviewing.  It's just a lot simpler and just as satisfying for me.

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12 hours ago, Louis D said:

If you look straight ahead and concentrate on your peripheral vision, you should be able to perceive the outer field in 65+ degree AFOV eyepieces.  However, the moment you try to look directly at the edge, you will necessarily lose the view in one eyepiece without a lot of readjustment of your head position to try and hold both exit pupils simultaneously while your eyeball is aimed off to the side.  That's why I stick to 60 degree AFOV eyepieces for binoviewing.  It's just a lot simpler and just as satisfying for me.

You may be right about the peripheral vision, but as I only use binoviewers for lunar/planetary it was the direct vision I was after/trying to use. I too find the narrower eyepieces more satisfying to use in a binoviewer.

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I only use 50 degree eyepieces for the same reason that Louis says. When Binoviewing I just concentrate mainly on axis, and pan the scope around to find the feature I'm looking for. It's the same as binoculars really. To maintain both channels it works best to look on axis.

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