3.2mm BST - Yay or Nay

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Afternoon all,

I touched on this in another thread and would like some opinions on the 3.2mm BST eye piece. I have been enjoying trying to split doubles at the moment using my 5mm BST in the 200p this is giving me around x240 mag. Would It be of benefit acquiring the 3.2mm and achieving x375 mag? In clear seeing conditions will this help splitting tight doubles and provide a nice image? Or will I be better of with the 5mm and x2 Barlow combo. In my limited time at the eye piece I am not a huge fan of using my barlow and adding another lens to the optical chain.

I would also be interested to know if the 3.2mm would benefit viewing Uranus & Neptune also.

 

Any advise welcome.

Thank you

 

Barry

[John]

Personally I might look for a 4mm which gives a more usable step from your 5mm. 240x to 300x makes some sense but I'm not sure that 240x to 375x is that practical.

I know that means a non-BST Starguider eyepiece. These seem to get reasonable reports:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-uwa-planetary-eyepieces.html

[Louis D]

I have the 3.5mm Pentax XW, and because I rarely use it, I forewent the 3.2mm Paradigm when I picked up the rest of the set.  For splitting doubles, I would think a quality barlow would suffice.  Of course, the price would be similar to the 3.2mm BST, so there's no clear path here.

As far as Uranus and Neptune, more power just enlarges their non-stellar green and blue disks, respectively, but doesn't show any additional details in my experience.

I've mainly used the 3.5mm Pentax on the moon, globulars, a few tight open clusters, the Trapezium, and some double stars.  It's comfortable and sharp, but that tiny exit pupil is difficult for me to deal with for any extended period of time.

[John]

8 minutes ago, Louis D said:

...As far as Uranus and Neptune, more power just enlarges their non-stellar green and blue disks, respectively, but doesn't show any additional details in my experience.

 

Quite true with regards to the disks of these worlds but I have found using very high magnifications helps pick out their moons, which are very dim point sources of course.

[johninderby]

More expensive but a nice eyepiece and a bargain at the price and the wide fov can be very usefull.

Had one and really liked it and only sold it as I bought a 4.5mm Baader Morpheus.. 

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/ovl4nirvana.html#SID=1677

Edited February 14, 2020 by johninderby

[John]

Just now, johninderby said:

More expensive but a nice eyepiece and a bargain at the price and the wide fov can be very usefull.

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/ovl4nirvana.html#SID=1677

I had one for a while - a very good high power eyepiece 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Hi gents.

Thanks for the opinions. There is some nice looking eye pieces that have been recommended. I am not to bothered about sticking with the BST and am open to these suggestions. I was using the BST as an example as I am familiar with them and have an understanding of how they perform. I didn't think there was to many other options that performed as well for a modest outlay. Some of the examples given are still in my budget and look like they will be able to give high power viewing of globular and tight doubles. I will have a read up on about these eye piece later and will no doubt be back with more questions 😂

 

 

Baz

 

 

 

 

[mark81]

Baz,

+1 for the SW UWA eyepieces - for the price they seem to perform quite well.  I use a 6mm and it even Barlow's to an OK standard even on my small 80mm f5... 

Mark

[bingevader]

I have the 4mm OVL, it's a very fine eyepiece and the 82° FOV gives plenty of drift time.

[Geoff Barnes]

Only two nights ago I managed to split 32 abd 52 Orionis with my 4mm SW Planetary eyepiece. Now seeing conditions were superb but the SW was up to the task, I really rate the 4mm and 5mm Planetary's.

@johninderbyI have been poised to press the buy button on the Morpheus 4.5mm for a while now, have the 6.5mm and love it. Your opinion on the 4.5mm would be welcome, thanks.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Geoff Barnes

[johninderby]

17 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

 

@johninderbyI have been poised to press the buy button on the Morpheus 4.5mm for a while now, have the 6.5mm and love it. Your ooinion on the 4.5mm would be welcone, thanks.

Have found the 4.5mm Morpheus gets used more than expected. Bought it for my 10” f/5 dob originaly but now also use it in my 8” classical,cassgrain where it gives nearly 550x on the moon.on nights of decent seeing. Noticable improvement in sharpness and contrast over my old X-Cel eyepieces which are similar to the planetary eyepieces. Good eyepiece for the price. 👍🏻

Edited February 14, 2020 by johninderby

[mikeDnight]

5 hours ago, johninderby said:

More expensive but a nice eyepiece and a bargain at the price and the wide fov can be very usefull.

Had one and really liked it and only sold it as I bought a 4.5mm Baader Morpheus.. 

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/ovl4nirvana.html#SID=1677

I too had a 4mm Nirvana. It was one of the older style bodies with the flat top around the eye lens. I sold it because I didn't like the flat top, but the optics were very impressive. I remember watching Saturn drift into the field at one edge, traverse the field, and drift clean off the edge at the other side. There was no distortion and it was perfectly sharp from edge to edge. 

[bingevader]

18 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I too had a 4mm Nirvana. It was one of the older style bodies with the flat top around the eye lens. I sold it because I didn't like the flat top, but the optics were very impressive. I remember watching Saturn drift into the field at one edge, traverse the field, and drift clean off the edge at the other side. There was no distortion and it was perfectly sharp from edge to edge. 

Happy to report that the optics seem to have remained impressive. Haven't tried with Saturn yet, but have been very pleased with the edge to edge sharpness at f6.

[John]

The Nirvana's are good eyepieces. The 16mm is not quite as good as the rest but still a pretty decent 82 degree eyepiece.

Pity that there are not more of them in the range.

[rwilkey]

Hi Barry, I had the 3.2mm BST StarGuider sent to me for testing, I have to say I am not keen on it and the 5mm would be better for you I feel.  I found the 3.2mm only performed well on the Moon.

[Barry-W-Fenner]

1 hour ago, rwilkey said:

Hi Barry, I had the 3.2mm BST StarGuider sent to me for testing, I have to say I am not keen on it and the 5mm would be better for you I feel.  I found the 3.2mm only performed well on the Moon.

Hi rwilkey,

Thank you for the heads up, it is good to have a view from someone with experience with the 3.2. What scope did you try it in and what mag did it give you when testing?

I do have the 5mm in my collection and I think  I will be purchasing sometime in the 4mm region as per the suggestions above, however I am yet to have a read about them and make a decision. 😊

 

Baz

[Barry-W-Fenner]

On 14/02/2020 at 16:37, John said:

Quite true with regards to the disks of these worlds but I have found using very high magnifications helps pick out their moons, which are very dim point sources of course.

I would be happy to increase the disc size of the planets and as pointed out by John I am hoping the higher power will help to locate the points of lights which are the planets moons.

 

 

[rwilkey]

15 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Hi rwilkey,

Thank you for the heads up, it is good to have a view from someone with experience with the 3.2. What scope did you try it in and what mag did it give you when testing?

I do have the 5mm in my collection and I think  I will be purchasing sometime in the 4mm region as per the suggestions above, however I am yet to have a read about them and make a decision. 😊

 

Baz

Hi Baz, I tested it in my C100ED a 100/900 at f/9, my Moon and planet killer, it gave me 281x, which is probably why it didn't work well on other more diffuse targets!  The 4mm Nirvana or clone would be good I believe.

Edited February 16, 2020 by rwilkey

[RobertI]

I've been going through the same process - I have a 150PL (F8) and a 5mm BST giving 240x, but feel I could go to higher mags for some doubles. The 4mm NIrvana was top of my list, but then I thought that another option is to replace my 5mm BST with a 5mm Hyperion. With the fine tuning rings (which I already have) I could get 5mm, 4mm, 3.2mm and 2.6mm, all from one eyepiece. To be honest, I would only use the 2.6mm on my other shorter FL scopes, but it does give the option of a range of focal lengths with which to experiment. I know Hyperions are not brilliant on F5 scopes (edge distortion), but they are very good on my F8 scope (sharp to the edges) and from memory work fine on my F6 scope (I'm sure others can also advise).

[bingevader]

Or a barlow?

[Barry-W-Fenner]

5 hours ago, bingevader said:

Or a barlow?

Hi bingevader,I do have a x2 barlow but am not a huge fan of another lens in the optical chain. I do use it on occasion but would prefer a high power eye piece as my main go to option for splitting and globular.

Regards

Baz

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

I see that FLO have a used 4mm SW planetary eye piece £5 cheaper. In great nic apparently bar a couple of small marks on the barrel.

Do I pull the trigger 🤔😁

Baz