Show us your Orthos

[Les Ewan]

I have 14 eyepieces  but only 2 are ortho's Ive had them for over 30 years the 9mm I bought from Edinburgh Cameras and the 12.5 mm mail order from Dark Star.I find the 9mm particularly good with Saturn when using my 6" f 8 reflector.

[Piero]

Nice thread! I don't have any ortho (yet) due to tight eye relief. 

I have a Leica eyepiece used for Leica Microscopes though. It was one gift of a friend of mine when I left Newcastle (the other gift was a bottle of Talisker...eheh). 

It's in Italy right now.. I'll check the model as I think it is an ortho.

[jetstream]

2 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

I don't own any ortho's...yet! I've been pondering a 6mm BCO for planetary viewing though. There don't seem to be many other options that you can still buy or I'm looking in the wrong places! Everything I've read suggests, for planetary viewing, you'd have to spend significantly more on an eyepiece to beat the quality of an ortho. Do you ortho owners still agree with this or have other eyepiece designs caught up with the orthos in terms of quality planetary viewing in the £50 price bracket?

Orthos are definitely relevant these days. As an option you might want to try a 12.5mm ortho in your barlow- this maintains a nice eyerelief. You can spend hundreds on an eyepiece and have a 50 pound ortho squeak by it...

[Littleguy80]

My first Ortho arrived today and it's a good one  Just gave it a quick test run on Jupiter and the Moon. By far the best view of Jupiter I've ever had. I've been able to comfortably make out the bands previously but tonight I could clearly see the Great Red Spot. Very exciting! Lunar detail was equally impressive. Thanks for the encouragement to try an Ortho, I haven't been disappointed

[John]

The 6mm Baader Genuine Ortho is an absolute gem

To get better optical performance I reckon you would need to spend £hundreds and even then the differences would only be very subtle and only there on the nights of very best seeing conditions.

[Littleguy80]

Thanks John. Your great reviews on the BGO's was a big factor in me seeking one out

[Roy Challen]

I've never been long without an ortho, although I only have one BGO at the moment (a 7mm). The best I've ever owned and used were these -

closely followed by the Meade RGOs. I would say that the Zeiss' extremely low light scatter was what put them in front of the Meades. The Baader BGOs I've had/have are also extremely good, I could do with a 6mm and 5mm. The single Tak MC ortho I had a couple of years back was a bit so-so, as was the Circle-T Meade Series 2 but these may have been duff examples as most opinions rate these quite highly. Incidentally, I still own the Huygens in the pic above, and can say that in an achro of f/16 or so, it is without doubt the sharpest EP I have ever looked through on axis. It's a bit rough from 50-60% out, but that on-axis view is something else.

[nightfisher]

On 3/27/2017 at 22:53, Piero said:

Nice thread! I don't have any ortho (yet) due to tight eye relief. 

I have a Leica eyepiece used for Leica Microscopes though. It was one gift of a friend of mine when I left Newcastle (the other gift was a bottle of Talisker...eheh). 

It's in Italy right now.. I'll check the model as I think it is an ortho.

Piero, welcome back my friend, very good to see you posting on here again

[Piero]

1 hour ago, nightfisher said:

Piero, welcome back my friend, very good to see you posting on here again

Thank you, Jules. It's nice to see you again too.  

[Highburymark]

Thought there must have been an ortho thread hiding on SGL somewhere so happy to find this one - here are my Fujiyamas - 25mm pair for binoviewing, and 12.5mm and 6mm for everything else. Main competition in my EP stable are TV plossls - TVs still have the edge for solar ha - superior brightness and surface detail - but have to say the Fujiyamas are marginally better lunar eyepieces. Quite outstanding. Haven't had a chance to compare on other targets yet, but looking forward to doing so. 

[Rocket_the_Raccoon]

My only and beloved Orthoscopic...originally a .965" Celestron Circle-V...converted to 1.25". It gives 67x on my short-tube refractor. Image is relatively sharp with good contrast but field is very narrow, possibly an AFOV of less than 40 degrees, thus a straight planetary eyepiece.

[nightfisher]

On 13/03/2017 at 18:21, nightfisher said:

Great topic, i used to own the full set of Circle T volcano tops but let them go as a set

only own 2 ortho`s now, the Antares HD 7mm and 9mm but these are superb

To update this, i do have 3 ortho`s now, still got the superb Antares plus i have a BCO 18mm that has proved to be a rather nice EP, if any other Antares came up i would be very tempted

[mikeDnight]

Currently I've got only one pair of orthos, and just to bring things to rock bottom, they are among the cheapest on the market. This pair of Super Abbe Orthoscopics are my main workhorse,  and despite the low opinion that some may have of these eyepieces, in the binoviewer they outstrip in every way a mono 5mm TMB supermonocentric for lunar and planetary. 

[R26 oldtimer]

Ready for Mars...

Just to make sure that I'll be getting the best image my objective can deliver!

[Timebandit]

3 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Currently I've got only one pair of orthos, and just to bring things to rock bottom, they are among the cheapest on the market. This pair of Super Abbe Orthoscopics are my main workhorse,  and despite the low opinion that some may have of these eyepieces, in the binoviewer they outstrip in every way a mono 5mm TMB supermonocentric for lunar and planetary. 

 

 

 I think Mike ,this is a prime example of how modest two eye viewing?.

Can rival or beat a top quality eyepiece , like the TMB supermonocentric 

?

 

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, R26 oldtimer said:

Ready for Mars...

Just to make sure that I'll be getting the best image my objective can deliver!

 

For the price point ,you are not going to get anything better . punches well above its cost 

So a brilliant eyepiece for some planetary views , especially in a nice frac ? ?

 

[Saganite]

These are my little gems, brutally sharp , easy to handle and  load into the Baader turret for a session of hassle free  observing. The Meade 7's work as well as I had hoped in my binoviewer.

All of them keepers !... 

[rwilkey]

Hi all, thanks for sharing info about your lovely collections.  I cannot add such wonderful accounts or pictures, however, I bought a cheapo 'set' of four for £100 a few years ago and these have been my only experience of ortho's, which I have not taken to since I caught the widefield bug.  Anyway my ortho's are as follows: they came in following focal lengths: 4.8mm, 7.7mm, 10.5mm, 16.8mm. These ep's were manufactured by Kson based in Guangdong, China, and were offered for sale for a very limited period only in the UK.  
 

[marcus_z]

Here are some Takahashi Abbes

[L8-Nite]

These are my current Orthoscopics..... 6mm, 10mm, 12.5mm, 16mm, and 25mm. I would like to come across an 8mm, but they are as rare as Polar bears in a desert. Zeiss made a 4mm, but I doubt it would be useful considering atmospheric conditions here in the UK.

[mikeDnight]

14 hours ago, rwilkey said:

Hi all, thanks for sharing info about your lovely collections.  I cannot add such wonderful accounts or pictures, however, I bought a cheapo 'set' of four for £100 a few years ago and these have been my only experience of ortho's, which I have not taken to since I caught the widefield bug.  Anyway my ortho's are as follows: they came in following focal lengths: 4.8mm, 7.7mm, 10.5mm, 16.8mm. These ep's were manufactured by Kson based in Guangdong, China, and were offered for sale for a very limited period only in the UK.  
 

If you like using a binoviewer for observing the moon Robin, it might be worth grabbing another 16.8 Kson. They come under several brand names but are all identical. I think 365 Astronomy sell them for £39 and Opticstar sell them branded as Ascension for £25. When i first bought a binoviewer around eight or nine years ago, paulastro loaned me a pair of Kson 16.8mm's. Four years later he was observing the moon and Jupiter with me in my observatory, when after being amazed at the superb imagery, he said "Are these the eyepieces I let you borrow?" I told him they were! He then said "How long have you had them?" "Four years" I replied! "You thieving git" he exclaimed! "They are brilliant!!" Suffice it is to say, I had to buy my own pair from then on! 

[Highburymark]

3 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

If you like using a binoviewer for observing the moon Robin, it might be worth grabbing another 16.8 Kson. They come under several brand names but are all identical. I think 365 Astronomy sell them for £39 and Opticstar sell them branded as Ascension for £25. When i first bought a binoviewer around eight or nine years ago, paulastro loaned me a pair of Kson 16.8mm's. Four years later he was observing the moon and Jupiter with me in my observatory, when after being amazed at the superb imagery, he said "Are these the eyepieces I let you borrow?" I told him they were! He then said "How long have you had them?" "Four years" I replied! "You thieving git" he exclaimed! "They are brilliant!!" Suffice it is to say, I had to buy my own pair from then on! 

Mike - do you know where your orthos were made? I've read that there may be only one Japanese manufacturer now - but your EPs have different focal lengths to the Fujiyama/BCO ranges. So presumably two different factories?

[rwilkey]

15 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Mike - do you know where your orthos were made? I've read that there may be only one Japanese manufacturer now - but your EPs have different focal lengths to the Fujiyama/BCO ranges. So presumably two different factories?

As mentioned above in my piece: Kson are based in Guangdong, China. 

[rwilkey]

4 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

If you like using a binoviewer for observing the moon Robin, it might be worth grabbing another 16.8 Kson. They come under several brand names but are all identical. I think 365 Astronomy sell them for £39 and Opticstar sell them branded as Ascension for £25. When i first bought a binoviewer around eight or nine years ago, paulastro loaned me a pair of Kson 16.8mm's. Four years later he was observing the moon and Jupiter with me in my observatory, when after being amazed at the superb imagery, he said "Are these the eyepieces I let you borrow?" I told him they were! He then said "How long have you had them?" "Four years" I replied! "You thieving git" he exclaimed! "They are brilliant!!" Suffice it is to say, I had to buy my own pair from then on! 

Hi Mike, though I have heard good reports about binoviewing, my budget does not allow for buying two of everything, though I have a double set of plossl's which I am endeavouring to sale locally at the moment.  My gut feeling rather than buy two is to put that money towards one better single ep, I have gradually been increasing my budget and upgrading my current ep's and have recently made a foray into the black and greens, so there is no hope for me now haha!

[Highburymark]

4 minutes ago, rwilkey said:

As mentioned above in my piece: Kson are based in Guangdong, China. 

Sorry - missed your reference. (I also meant BGO not BCO). Spectacular value. Though the Fujiyama can also be picked up for far less than the £90 they cost at 365. Mine were £60. Still these Kson EPs look unbeatable value

[mikeDnight]

52 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Sorry - missed your reference. (I also meant BGO not BCO). Spectacular value. Though the Fujiyama can also be picked up for far less than the £90 they cost at 365. Mine were £60. Still these Kson EPs look unbeatable value

I'm not sure about the rest of the Kson/Super Abbe line but the 16.8mm's are very nice with longer scopes. In the FC100DC I use them in the binoviewer with a 2X barlow, and they are sharp to the edge. In mono use at F7.5 (without a Barlow), they are not too good around the edges. I did buy a set of Fujiyama orthos and they were more transparent, but I think they were a faulty batch, as all but the 9mm had a major edge distortion issue. Terrific on axis but as jupiter moved only one diameter off centre field, the image fell to pieces. I'd like another set but am nervous about buying another floored set.