Morpheus in the twenties?

[midatlantic61]

I have a gap to fill between my Baader aspheric 31, (giving slightly too much exit pupil for my 58 year old eyes (5.25) as it produces a quite bright image) and the next one up, the Morpheus 17.5.
I'm looking for some 4.0 exit pupil which would be something around 24mm/68.
It needs to be Dioptrx compatible, like the ES 24/68 or the 24mm Hyperion. The latter isn't good at F6 and the first seems to have an eye relief just at the limit.
I've been searching a lot on SGL and on CN and it seems that a wide angle 24 mm eyepiece with really sufficient eye relief to mount a Dioptrx still needs to be designed.

I was wondering if any of the eyepiece market insiders has any idea if Baader could be working on some extension to the Morpheus line, like 22-26 mm.

[Geoff Barnes]

Hi midatlantic61,

I'm not aware of any such products in the pipeline from Baader. Maybe get in contact with them direct, though I would think any new developments would be top secret until ready for launch...

https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/contact-us/

[John]

To make a Morpheus in 20mm or longer focal length it would need to have huge lenses to get the apparent field and eye relief that the Morpheus range have. It would also be somewhat more expensive than the current range and probably in the 2 inch format because of it's bulk and weight. I'm not aware that Baader has any plans for anything longer than the 17.5mm. Baader struggled to get the quality they wanted at 17.5mm focal length so that eyepiece was launched somewhat later than the others in the Morpheus range.

Looking at whats around with the eye relief and correction you want maybe a 22mm Vixen LVW would do . This is a really good quality eyepiece with a 65 degree AFoV, 20mm of eye relief and is in the 1.25 inch fitting.

Not sure if it's Dioptrix compatible though.

[Louis D]

The 22mm Nagler T4 is pretty good and Dioptrx compatible.  It's probably the best of the NT4s.  I don't have the 22mm Vixen LVW to compare it to.  The 22mm AT AF70 (same as Omegon Redline SW and TS-Optics Expanse) is nearly as good for a fraction of the price and 12 degrees less field.  If you screw off the eye cup, there's a 43mm thread that a Dioptrix might be able to attach to.  It has plenty of eye relief for eyeglass wearers with the eye cup removed.

Here's some images of and through my 18 to 22mm and 23mm to 28mm eyepieces for reference.

[John]

I agree that the Nagler T4 22mm would also be a good option to consider.

It might make the Baader Aspheric 31 look a little "ordinary" though

[johnturley]

22 minutes ago, John said:

I agree that the Nagler T4 22mm would also be a good option to consider.

It might make the Baader Aspheric 31 look a little "ordinary" though

Do be aware that the Nagler T4 22mm is a fairly heavy eyepiece, about twice the weight of 17 mm Morpheus,  quite a bit heavier than the Baader Aspheric 31 mm, and may require rebalancing of your scope.

[John]

20 minutes ago, johnturley said:

Do be aware that the Nagler T4 22mm is a fairly heavy eyepiece, about twice the weight of 17 mm Morpheus,  quite a bit heavier than the Baader Aspheric 31 mm, and may require rebalancing of your scope.

Fair point John. The choice of eyepieces that ticks the right boxes here is a bit limited though.

 

 

[F15Rules]

Just joined the thread and would have drafted something very similar to John's post had he not beat me to it!

I'm a big fan of the Morpheus range and well recall how the 14mm captivated me  (the first one I owned)..it was not until almost 3 years later that Baader perfected the 17.5mm (it was well worth the wait!), and my reading at the time suggested that Baader felt that they had, with the 17.5mm, pushed that design to its' very limits, hence the delays.. so I don't think we are likely to see longer FL Morphs in the future, sadly.

That being the case, I would heartily recommend the Vixen 22mm. In my honest opinion, and after many side by side field comparisons, I sold my Pentax XW 20mm in favour of the Vixen: it bested the Pentax in contrast and much less field curvature, and matched it in everything else. Sadly discontinued now, they are hard to find, but if you find one for sale, grab it! I've never used the Dioptrix, so can't help on that I'm afraid.

Good luck.

Dave

Edited November 22, 2019 by F15Rules

[Louis D]

Well, the 17.5mm Morpheus eyepiece weighs 14 ounces while the AF70 is 17 ounces, so that might be an option if the Dioptrx will cam onto the 43mm threads, which is the same as the Morpheus's top threads.  I've actually successfully threaded the AF70 eye cup onto the 14mm Morpheus.  The 22mm AF70 (and its brand equivalents) is at least as well corrected as the 31mm Hyperion Aspheric, so that shouldn't be an issue for the OP.

[midatlantic61]

Thanks for the answers.

The Vixen LVW has two problems:
- there isn't any for sale anywhere, and I've been looking for a while now, who has the luck to own one won't sell it.
- it's very close to the Morpheus 17.5 with TrueFOV 1.19deg to 1.11 and 54x Mag to 69x

The Nagler 4/22 is a whole different story, TFOV 1.49deg, that's right in the middle between the Aspheric and the Morpheus 17.5, but this one is clearly outside of what I'm able to spend on a single eyepiece.
Doesn't seem to show up often second hand either...

The AF/FMC 22/70 looks interesting, its TFOV of 1.29deg is much closer to the 1.3 of the ES24/68. I'll have a closer look at that one.

The ES24/68 remains the only one with the mathematically right exit pupil.

[midatlantic61]

TS-Optics Expanse/Astro Tech AT70 22 mm
unfortunately has a flange which seems a little too short to mount the Dioptrx:....

[Louis D]

Well, there's the 24mm APM UFF with an m43 eye cup flange.  It's a bit shorter than the Televue flange, but perhaps it would be enough for the Dioptrx to grab onto:

You can see the AFOV image in my post above.  I'm sure it would perform better than the 24mm Hyperion at f/6 (the f-ratio of the scope used to take those images).  I measured it as having 17mm of usable eye relief, so if you can get the Dioptrx attached, it should be easily usable with it.  I measured a 27.5mm effective field stop on mine.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Louis D

[F15Rules]

15 hours ago, midatlantic61 said:

The ES24/68 remains the only one with the mathematically right exit pupil

This eyepiece is also an excellent performer, not far behind the Vixen IMO👍☺.

Dave

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, F15Rules said:

This eyepiece is also an excellent performer, not far behind the Vixen IMO👍☺.

Dave

Apparently, the 24mm ES-68 and Meade 5000 SWA both work with Dioptrx and have just enough eye relief to make it work.

With double sided tape on a 34mm Meade 5000 SWA:

[midatlantic61]

... I must admit, the Nagler 22mm would just fit perfectly ...

[Don Pensack]

On 21/11/2019 at 17:58, midatlantic61 said:

I have a gap to fill between my Baader aspheric 31, (giving slightly too much exit pupil for my 58 year old eyes (5.25) as it produces a quite bright image) and the next one up, the Morpheus 17.5.
I'm looking for some 4.0 exit pupil which would be something around 24mm/68.
It needs to be Dioptrx compatible, like the ES 24/68 or the 24mm Hyperion. The latter isn't good at F6 and the first seems to have an eye relief just at the limit.
I've been searching a lot on SGL and on CN and it seems that a wide angle 24 mm eyepiece with really sufficient eye relief to mount a Dioptrx still needs to be designed.

I was wondering if any of the eyepiece market insiders has any idea if Baader could be working on some extension to the Morpheus line, like 22-26 mm.

They are not.  It would be 2", and a lot more expensive and Baader hasn't yet amortized the development costs of the Morpheus eyepieces they do have.

Eyepieces with 20-24mm and long eye relief compatible with the DioptRx include:

20mm Pentax XW 70°

22mm TeleVue Nagler Type 4 82°

22mm Olivon 70 (eyecup removed)

24mm APM UltraFlatField 65°

 

 

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Eyepieces with 20-24mm and long eye relief compatible with the DioptRx include:

20mm Pentax XW 70°

22mm TeleVue Nagler Type 4 82°

22mm Olivon 70 (eyecup removed)

24mm APM UltraFlatField 65°

 

 

And I've got 3 of those 4 as posted above. 😃