A small Wow moment

[Robindonne]

Oke basically a very useless post.  Bought last year a used 80 mm ed.  It came with multiple eyepieces and one of them is a 3.8 mm eudiascopic.   Ive never really used this one because it always gave a blurry, vague and dim view.   My other 71ed was even more terrible to use with this 3.8.  Last week bought an 100ed and finally i saw the benefits of that small eyepiece.  That was my “wow” from the post-title🙂.
I think i finally realized why the max usefull magnification is mentioned with different diameter scopes.   

Edited July 2, 2020 by Robindonne

[banjaxed]

5 hours ago, Robindonne said:

Oke basically a very useless post.  Bought last year a used 80 mm ed.  It came with multiple eyepieces and one of them is a 3.8 mm eudiascopic.   Ive never really used this one because it always gave a blurry, vague and dim view.   My other 71ed was even more terrible to use with this 3.8.  Last week bought an 100ed and finally i saw the benefits of that small eyepiece.  That was my “wow” from the post-title🙂.
I think i finally realized why the max usefull magnification is mentioned with different diameter scopes.   

Don’t you think that is what makes astronomy a fascinating hobby, you never stop learning.

[Robindonne]

Yes you are very right.  Im not even at 1% i quess.    And we probably all end at Max 30%.  Thats what will make it always interesting.  The great amount of unknown.  

[mikeDnight]

That's a nice experience, and the 3.8mm is one I don't have!  The Eudiascopic's are exceptional eyepieces and the 3.8mm is quite a rare animal. Being a pseudo Masuyama it is quite a collectable too, so you could have quite a jewel in your collection. Great for double stars as well as lunar and planetary when the seeing conditions permit. 

[Don Pensack]

The 3.8mm is 7 elements in a 2:1:2:2 configuration--a five element with a 2 element Barlow in the bottom.

[Robindonne]

Ah ok.  Well its not a baader eyepiece i quess.  Belgium?

lichtenknecker optics...?

Edited July 5, 2020 by Robindonne

[John]

I think it is one of the "pseudo Masuyama" eyepieces, made in Japan.

This is the 3.8mm branded by Orion (USA) as the Ultrascopic:

There was also a version branded as Parks "Gold" series and I think an Antares branded version as well.

 

 

[Robindonne]

3 minutes ago, John said:

I think it is one of the "pseudo Masuyama" eyepieces, made in Japan.

This is the 3.8mm branded by Orion (USA) as the Ultrascopic:

There was also a version branded as Parks "Gold" series and I think an Antares branded version as well.

 

 

Almost similar indeed

[mikeDnight]

So a pseudo Masuyama with a built in barlow? I think the 5mm uses a built in barlow too if I remember rightly, but as I'm happy using barlows anyway, it doesn't put me off at all.

[John]

The alternative route was taken by Celestron with their version of these eyepieces - the Ultima range. The 5mm in that range did not use a barlow set. The eyepiece was consequentially physically much shorter but the eye relief was much tighter. There was no 3.8mm in the Ultima range though. Presumably without a barlow element the eye relief would be so short you would practically need to glue your eyeball to the eye lens.

 

 

[Don Pensack]

As I recall, they were sold as:

Antares Elite

Parks Gold Series

Orion Ultrascopic

Celestron Ultima

Tuthill Plössls

Omcon Ultima

Baader Eudiascopic.

and there may have been others.  I vaguely recall some private labels (Focus Camera?  Adorama?)

As far as I know, all the above were from the same company, believed to be Ohi Optical

Meade's series 4000 "Super Plössl" of the '80s and early '90s was pretty much the same design, but made by Kowa.

Meade's offering was the start of the term "Super Plössl", implying that adding another lens made the Plössl "Super".

Later offerings from other companies picked up on the name to describe their pedestrian 4-element Plössls.

Now the term has no meaning (as if it ever did).

[Ags]

When I started in the hobby, I did find the subject of "super" Plossls very confusing. But I did have a strong sense that an eyepiece with "super" in the name was unlikely to be better!

[mikeDnight]

It's definitely time for the serious high end eyepiece manufacturers to add the highly descriptive and scientific term "Dooper" into the title, and copyright it!  At least then well know where we stand. ☺

[John]

These are "Super" but not really ......