Sentimental eyepieces

[Supernova74]

Ps I don,t what to get to deep into eyepieces here however another important factor to consider is people’s eyesight and vision may differ at times for an exsample if you was wearing glasses.also an age of a 30 year old man could be different to let’s say an 60 year old man.its comparing in some ways a 1080p HD led screen to a 4K native led screen for some may not notice a difference in resolution,contrast as an overall performance so that would,nt be fair to judge?and even if the technology changed for an instance in premium eyepieces like Televue,badder Morpheus,Pentax thease are just some exsamples there would be a limit in what we could actually see as the human eye can only reach a certain maximum resolution before we cannot notice any further advantage.

[Don Pensack]

3 hours ago, John said:

A few times over the years I have re-purchased an eyepiece that I used to own and enjoy.

Most of the time this has made me realise why I parted with them and that things have moved on in terms of observing comfort, coatings and glass types

I tend to resist the temptation these days.

 

Amen to that, John.

I owned a Plössl eyepiece of 1-1/8" focal length (it was called a "Type III Kellner" by Edmund Scientific) in the late '60s and early '70s.

It was great in my f/15 refractor of the time (a 4" Unitron), and it had no field stop other than the 28mm interior of the barrel.

It had an eye lens almost as wide as the eyepiece and tons of eye relief.  I loved that eyepiece.

Fast forward to 1990, and my scope of the time was a 6" f/5 newtonian.  I bought another of the same eyepiece I found at a swap meet, and excitedly used it that night in my scope.

It was horrible, with lots of internal light scatter, horrible astigmatism, and only the center 50% even moderately sharp.

I took it apart, blackened the lens edges, the internal spacers, and barrel.  It did improve the light scatter, but did nothing for the soft, non-focused field stop or the astigmatism

in the outer 50% of the field.  I knew what coma was by then, and expected to see that, but some of my other eyepieces showed ONLY coma, while this one was simply

horrible in all ways.  It was an eyepiece for f/15, and certainly not f/5.

They say that hindsight is 20/20, meaning you see clearly what came before.  Nostalgia is the proof that isn't true.  We evolve as we go along.

Your final line is very good advice.

[mikeDnight]

I made a complete turn around a few years ago, and although I've had many years using expensive wide field eyepieces, I have none in my collection today. An experience with a 26mm pseudo Masuyama around five or six years ago was like a breath of fresh air. Today I only use pseudo Masuyama's of various brands, along with four Vixen high resolution, high power eyepieces. 

[JeremyS]

10 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I made a complete turn around a few years ago, and although I've had many years using expensive wide field eyepieces, I have none in my collection today. An experience with a 26mm pseudo Masuyama around five or six years ago was like a breath of fresh air. Today I only use pseudo Masuyama's of various brands, along with four Vixen high resolution, high power eyepieces.

Thought you were getting ready to play chess there, Mike. I like your pawns. But wait a mo...has your King already capitulated?

🙂

 

[banjaxed]

My Celestron 32mm super plossl that I bought of an SGL member in a set of eyepieces is very well used, can't see myself ever parting with it.

[Ags]

6 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

It was an eyepiece for f/15, and certainly not f/5.

Don't blame the eyepiece, it was made for an age of long refractors. Get a cheap F13 four inch mak for it and enjoy the views 🙂

[markse68]

21 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I made a complete turn around a few years ago, and although I've had many years using expensive wide field eyepieces, I have none in my collection today. An experience with a 26mm pseudo Masuyama around five or six years ago was like a breath of fresh air. Today I only use pseudo Masuyama's of various brands, along with four Vixen high resolution, high power eyepieces. 

Hi Mike, how would you describe the view through a PM ep? As I understand it it’s like a plossl design with an extra correcting element thrown in. Plossl tend to get a bit soft at the edges and suffer pincushion distortion- is the PM simply a better corrected Plossl? Are the so called Super Plossl a similar design?

Mark

edit- did I look through one last night? 🤔 Is the parks 10mm here a PM design? That would be quite funny! It was perfectly sharp to the field stop and showed as much detail on Jupiter as the BCO maybe a little warmer  by comparison though. Then again the BCO has always struck me as being very cold- which is reality I don’t know...

Edited May 25, 2020 by markse68

[John]

The Parks GS-5 10mm is the same optically as the Celestron Ultima 10mm and the Orion Ultrascopic 10mm and the Antares Elite 10mm.

 

[rl]

The three front eyepieces are Ramsdens bought from Fullerscopes in 1974. I had just built my first "proper" telescope at the tender age of 16; an 8" f/8 long focus Newtonian  funded by a 50 pound legacy from an old aunt. 

The eyepieces were a subsequent birthday present. They are RAS thread, 1", 1/2" and 1/4 ", all without coatings (dust doesn't count!). Not so long ago I compared then to my ethos collection on Jupiter and I was amazed that they gave up very little in the amount of detail seen. The presentation in the ethoses was of course a zillion light years better with the vast field and sharp field stop, and lack of reflections, but in terms of what you could actually draw on paper there wasn't that much in it.  I think they were 4 pounds each which I thought was expensive at the time!

The 4.8mm Nagler has already featured in this thread. Mine was purchased for the 1988 Mars opposition, for use with a 5" f/10 refractor. At the time it was a big disappointment because Mars was low and the eyepiece was a bit too much power for the conditions. It languished rather unloved for some years until I got into medium/ large fast reflectors, for which it proved to be a match made in heaven as a high power planetary eyepiece. In a 12" f/4 or an 8" f4/5 the views are actually very good conditions permitting. I still use it very regularly in spite of the fact I have a 4.7 ethos. It's small enough and light enough to use with any scope. 

[John]

I had a 4.8mm Nagler smoothside many years ago. That and a 7mm T1 were my 1st ultra wide eyepieces.

I believe Roland Christen used a 4.8 as his benchmarking eyepiece ?

I used to have an Ethos SX 4.7 as well but that's another story !

 

[mikeDnight]

2 hours ago, markse68 said:

Hi Mike, how would you describe the view through a PM ep? As I understand it it’s like a plossl design with an extra correcting element thrown in. Plossl tend to get a bit soft at the edges and suffer pincushion distortion- is the PM simply a better corrected Plossl? Are the so called Super Plossl a similar design?

Mark

edit- did I look through one last night? 🤔 Is the parks 10mm here a PM design? That would be quite funny! It was perfectly sharp to the field stop and showed as much detail on Jupiter as the BCO maybe a little warmer  by comparison though. Then again the BCO has always struck me as being very cold- which is reality I don’t know...

Hi Mark,

 I'd describe the view through the PM's as having exceptional clarity, and transparent and sharp. The 26mm I used on that first fateful night was no worse at the edge than my 20mm Pentax XW, yet despite its narrower apparent field, the view was pin sharp on axis and had a transparency about the view that I couldn't get out of my mind. Your 10mm Parks Gold is a pseudo Masuyama. I'm glad you like it! ☺  Obviously I've taken a hit with regard to gaining the maximum true field possible with my scope, but to me its been worth it. It just seems of little benefit to pay for a wide field eyepiece, which isn't pin sharp at the edge and loses the on axis sharpness that some quality narrower field eyepieces offer. The five element PM's have been referred to as super plossl's, but there are other designs that also claim to be super plossl's but which are only four element, so the title alone can't be relied on.  Although Masuyama produced some stunning examples of this design and possibly produced the eyepieces for companies like Parks and Celestron etc back in the 80's, it may be the design initially originated with Zeiss. Baader more recently reintroduced the design in their Eudiascopic's, though these too are becoming difficult to source.

Edited May 25, 2020 by mikeDnight

[markse68]

51 minutes ago, rl said:

The three front eyepieces are Ramsdens bought from Fullerscopes in 1974. I had just built my first "proper" telescope at the tender age of 16; an 8" f/8 long focus Newtonian  funded by a 50 pound legacy from an old aunt. 

The eyepieces were a subsequent birthday present. They are RAS thread, 1", 1/2" and 1/4 ", all without coatings (dust doesn't count!). Not so long ago I compared then to my ethos collection on Jupiter and I was amazed that they gave up very little in the amount of detail seen. The presentation in the ethoses was of course a zillion light years better with the vast field and sharp field stop, and lack of reflections, but in terms of what you could actually draw on paper there wasn't that much in it.  I think they were 4 pounds each which I thought was expensive at the time!

The 4.8mm Nagler has already featured in this thread. Mine was purchased for the 1988 Mars opposition, for use with a 5" f/10 refractor. At the time it was a big disappointment because Mars was low and the eyepiece was a bit too much power for the conditions. It languished rather unloved for some years until I got into medium/ large fast reflectors, for which it proved to be a match made in heaven as a high power planetary eyepiece. In a 12" f/4 or an 8" f4/5 the views are actually very good conditions permitting. I still use it very regularly in spite of the fact I have a 4.7 ethos. It's small enough and light enough to use with any scope. 

Good to see another 4.8mm Nagler in this thread   I found it does have a couple of niggles- I guess the reason it’s not very popular now is the short eye relief but I find it no worse than my 6mm ortho and I’m ok with it though it takes getting used to the eye lash squishing. I used mine trying to split Sirius earlier in the year and when I finally got the conditions I could indeed see the pup with it but prior to that it exhibited a slight ghost image of the very bright Sirius which had me fooled at first till I realised it was moving the opposite direction to the star  ;). It’s been wonderful on the moon on nights of good seeing in my 8” f8 lately

[rl]

Dangerous thread this one....I'm on memory lane now. 

I bought this puppy in 1989 knowing I was going to Saudi Arabia for two years. I had it shipped out along with my Meade 8" SCT. 

The whole lot was impounded by the customs at Dhahran airport, and, despite the valiant efforts of my Saudi employers, nothing could be done to get it released. However, during one of the many negotiating trips to the

airport, I managed to trouser my Naglers. I walked out without being stopped with the inevitable question.."Excuse me sir, Is that a Nagler in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"  or however that translates in Arabic. 

As far as I know the scope is still there. ....it wasn't that much of a loss since it was one of the Halley examples. During that frantic period anything with glass in the front was fit to go out of the door. 

Later, one of the internal lenses cracked during a long winter night, probably because of thermal contraction by its retaining ring. It went back to Televue (outside of the guarantee period) and was fixed FOC. 

I still use it a lot. 

[John]

46 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

... It just seems of little benefit to pay for a wide field eyepiece, which isn't pin sharp at the edge and loses the on axis sharpness that some quality narrower field eyepieces offer....

Interestingly I have owned a couple of pseudo-Masuyama's that fell foul of the above issues. The Celestron Ultima range included 70 degree Axioms (also known as WA-70s) which were rather disappointing at least in faster scopes that I tried them in.

They were from the same factory but, alas, not Panoptic rivals, despite their rather high price when new.

Clearly the 52 degree, 5 element PM's are much better bets

[RT65CB-SWL]

28 minutes ago, rl said:

"Excuse me sir, Is that a Nagler in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"  or however that translates in Arabic." 

This is what it translates to... 
"اعذرني يا سيدي، هل هذا (ناغلر) في جيبك أم أنك سعيد لرؤيتي؟" - [arabic / Saudia Arabia] 🇸🇦 

"azerni ya sedey hill hudha (Nagler) fe chebak om ank said larouetee" - [transliteration]

Edited May 25, 2020 by Philip R

[rl]

Shokran Siddiq!!

[mikeDnight]

44 minutes ago, John said:

Interestingly I have owned a couple of pseudo-Masuyama's that fell foul of the above issues. The Celestron Ultima range included 70 degree Axioms (also known as WA-70s) which were rather disappointing at least in faster scopes that I tried them in.

They were from the same factory but, alas, not Panoptic rivals, despite their rather high price when new.

Clearly the 52 degree, 5 element PM's are much better bets

Ive always steered clear of the wide field versions, so have no experience of them. I dare say that in fast scopes even the 52° versions would lose their edge, but I've only had good views with my scopes. The versions I've been most disappointed with have been some of the Tak LE's.

[John]

20 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

...... I've been most disappointed with have been some of the Tak LE's.

We could start a whole other thread on disappointing eyepieces 

The interesting thing is that I doubt there would be much consensus - I've seen this so many times since I've been on forums.

 

[Alan White]

I have never met a sentimental eyepiece.🤣

They have never shown any emotion in front of me, but in the case who knows 😉

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Alan White said:

I have never met a sentimental eyepiece.🤣

They have never shown any emotion in front of me, but in the case who knows 😉

Sentimental eyepieces? So far as I'm concerned, it's an open and shut case.

🙂

 

[Merlin66]

The early "Super Plossl's" pre 1998, with "Japan" stamped on the black top section are far superior to the later "Japan" on the chrome nosepiece or the "Chinese" stamped versions.

 

[Alan White]

To follow on within the thread, it set me thinking and looking for eyepiece No.1 a 20mm Bresser RK (Rank Kellner / Reverse Kellner?)
I found it last night, arrived with my 90mm Bresser Achromat in the 1990's.
It took my breath away at the time looking at The Moon, consigned to the bits box long ago, so thought why not.

Well surprisingly good, long eye relief and very sharp on axis, off well, not, 
but who cares this eyepiece was my first and will now be loved a little bit more.
So pointed back at The Moon just before Clapping at 8pm.

Oddly mounted in something a bit more exotic than the long departed Bresser, which had great glass but an awful focuser.

As a PS, added 30 mins later:
I in a fit of sentiment trialled the 2x barlow, it was as awful as I remember it!
The 12.5 Kellner had my eyeball on the lens,
The 9mm RK was ok as well.

Thanks Ags for this trip down memory lane and some additional fun at the scope 👍

Edited May 29, 2020 by Alan White
PS added.

[Ags]

I think RK stands for Reverse Kellner.

[Don Pensack]

Could be, but RKE stands for Rank--Kaspereit--Erfle according to Edmund, not Rank Kellner eyepiece or Reverse Kellner Eyepiece.

 

[timwetherell]

Had a set of Huygens eyepieces with my 60mm refractor as a kid. Bought a set of really cheap huygens EPs a few years ago for about £10 just for the amusement putting them in the 60mm finder to remind me what the views used to be like. Of course my equipment's better now but my eyesight isn't a sharp as it was back then!