New eyepiece conundrum - help needed!

[RobertI]

Looking for some help and advice as I just dont have enough eyepiece experience.....

I want to be able to take my various scopes upto higher powers for lunar, planetary and particularly doubles. Budget is around the £100 mark, but could stretch a bit further if necessary. As you can see from my sig my smallest e/p is the BST 5mm, which as it happens is not a fab eyepiece anyway (it produces a slightly 'misty' image despite cleaning, wasn't always like this, not sure what happened). For doubles I was hoping to be able to get a range of focal lengths if possible, so the options I have been considering are:

1. A barlow such as the Baader Classic 2.25x (£39) or the Explore Scientific 3x (£86) - this would give a nice range of FLs with my 5mm BST and 10mm Hyperion (I have the fine tuning rings which turn it into 6mm, 7mm or 8.4mm, but also makes the eyepiece much longer!)
2. A 5mm Hyperion - with the fine tuning rings it will give me (2.6mm, 3.2mm and 4.0mm)
3. Another eyepiece suited to lunar/planetary/doubles. The OVL Nirvana-ES UWA-82º 4mm (£69) has previously been recommended. I feel I would also need another eyepiece for the 'mega-magnifications' that can sometimes be applied for resolving tight doubles. Perhaps the Celestron X-Cel LX 2.3mm (£66)?

The appeal of option 1 is that I could also use my 8-24 zoom e/p as a 2.7-8.0 zoom, which sounds really useful for doubles/planetary, but possibly not giving very good views in practice?? Option 2 is nice and flexible, I have been very happy with the Hyperions and regularly use the fine turing rings. Option 3 is possibly the most expensive and least flexible, but possibly providing the best views.

I also enjoy using two scopes during a session to compare views of the same object and it's nice to have the variety of eyepiece FLs to I get both scopes to the same magnification - possibly another tick in the box for option 1?

Really not sure where to go, any advice really appreciated! 

Rob

Edited July 3, 2020 by RobertI

[John]

I frequently use a 7.2mm  21.5mm zoom with the Baader 2.25x barlow on double stars. I has become one of my most used eyepiece combos in my refractors. I get a 9.5 - 3.2mm zoom which is a great range of magnifications for splitting double stars. 95x - 281x with my ED120 for example.

I was not fond of the Baader Fine Tuning rings myself, at least when used with the Hyperion eyepieces. Opening the optics of an eyepiece up frequently seems to me to be asking for problems with dust ingress at some point. I have found another good use for the FT rings but that would be off topic somewhat !

This is the zoom and barlow combo that I use:

 

[RobertI]

That’s really helpful and illuminating, thanks John. It’s also the cheapest option so I can’t really go wrong! I’ll probably press the button tomorrow unless someone can come up with another convincing argument in the meantime. 
 

I understand what you’re saying about the fine tuning rings, I guess I‘ve used them a lot because I am too tight to buy some more glass! 

[Ags]

I used to use the fine tuning rings a lot with a Hyperion 17mm  - to get down to 9mm for viewing Jupiter. It gave really great views. I would "tune" the eyepiece for the planet season then "untune" it for the rest of the year.  So not too much fiddling with the optics. The Hyperions make really nice planetary eyepieces in slower scopes.

[RobertI]

3 minutes ago, Ags said:

The Hyperions make really nice planetary eyepieces in slower scopes.

Yes, I’ve been really happy with them, very easy to use, nice FOV, and great with my F10 and F8 scopes. The 21mm was not so good with my F5 and F6 scopes but tend to use the 10mm in those scopes. Good to hear of others using the FTRs, not many folk seem to. 
 

@John, do you think it’s worth spending the extra on the Explore Scientific barlow, or is the achromatic Baader barlow good enough for use with all my (relatively modest) eyepieces? 

[Ags]

When I moved to a fast scope I sold the Hyperions. But they worked very well in slower scopes.

[jetstream]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

any advice really appreciated! 

If you can handle 8mm of eye relief its hard to beat a 10mm BCO- combine this with the Baader 2.25 Barlow and you have an awesome combo. I use it frequently. If the 10mm ortho has too short ER a 12.5mm Fuji ortho is another excellent and well used eye piece and barlows well.

Upping the wallet ante reveals the Vixen SLV's and upping it more the Vixen 3.4mm HR is the best EP I own for lunar/planetary.

 

ps... I typically avoid 82 deg + eye pieces for lunar/planetary, the 70ish and under offer much for this purpose.

Edited July 4, 2020 by jetstream
ps...

[RobertI]

9 hours ago, jetstream said:

If you can handle 8mm of eye relief its hard to beat a 10mm BCO- combine this with the Baader 2.25 Barlow and you have an awesome combo. I use it frequently. If the 10mm ortho has too short ER a 12.5mm Fuji ortho is another excellent and well used eye piece and barlows well.

Upping the wallet ante reveals the Vixen SLV's and upping it more the Vixen 3.4mm HR is the best EP I own for lunar/planetary.

 

ps... I typically avoid 82 deg + eye pieces for lunar/planetary, the 70ish and under offer much for this purpose.

Thanks Gerry, good suggestion on the BCO, never had an orthoscopic; they seem perfectly suited to my needs and still well within budget with the Baader 2.25 barlow.

[Merlin]

what  I  like  about  the zoom eyepiece  is  it's an  ideal  grab-and-go eyepiece, before the cloud rolls in!

[John]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

Thanks Gerry, good suggestion on the BCO, never had an orthoscopic; they seem perfectly suited to my needs and still well within budget with the Baader 2.25 barlow.

 

 

[jetstream]

3 hours ago, RobertI said:

Thanks Gerry, good suggestion on the BCO, never had an orthoscopic; they seem perfectly suited to my needs and still well within budget with the Baader 2.25 barlow.

Youre welcome, it was Johns excellent review that triggered my purchase years ago.

I have not been able to "buy" sharper, deeper or more contrasted views- this EP hangs in there with the best. It does have an opened up view which I like but ortho purists like to point out- but hey its one of Zeiss's designs. For some reason the 6mm BCO is not my favourite.

Edited July 4, 2020 by jetstream

[heliumstar]

3 hours ago, RobertI said:

Thanks Gerry, good suggestion on the BCO, never had an orthoscopic; they seem perfectly suited to my needs and still well within budget with the Baader 2.25 barlow.

Sometimes I only take BCOs 18mm and 10mm + 2.25x Barlow with me. 18mm as a finder and then 10mm and Barlow. It gives me magnifications from 30x to 120-130x in nice jumps - depending on the telescope.

Edited July 4, 2020 by heliumstar

[jetstream]

13 minutes ago, heliumstar said:

Sometimes I only take BCOs 18mm and 10mm + 2.25x Barlow with me. 18mm as a finder and then 10mm and Barlow. It gives me magnifications from 30x to 120-130x in nice jumps - depending on the telescope.

I do the same, what a fast way to get top views without being encumbered by many heavy eyepieces.

[MetroiD]

Personally, I'm a huge fan of option 3 as suggested above - coincidentally, these are also my current two high-power EPs. I never got used to barlowing EPs - always had the distinct feeling that deteriorates picture quality too much if conditions are suboptimal. As to the Hyperion - it's a great EP and one I've enjoyed on a few occasions but I opted for the UWAN + X-Cel combo instead.

[RobertI]

7 hours ago, John said:

 

Finally finished reading this - very  informative review and obviously we’ll received. 
 

I have now placed the order for the 2.25x barlow and am seriously considering a BCO. 
 

Thanks for the help everyone, I’ll post my experiences of using the barlow in due course. 👍

[bomberbaz]

I have used all the options you have listed above in one way or another and if given the option now I would get a tele-extender (TE) from either televue or explore scientific. The latter being a lower costing option.

I have been using this option for a number of years now with my DOB and find it an excellent solution for much of my deep sky viewing.

I have not done a lot of double star work despite spending a fair bit of time collating information on this aspect of the hobby. However I really like the idea of having a barlow or TE for use with a zoom as suggested by @John. 

This idea is so obvious a great solution  for viewing doubles where there can be significant variance in object difficulties that are going to place widely varying demands upon your equipment. 

Steve

[sputniksteve]

On 05/07/2020 at 13:21, bomberbaz said:

I have used all the options you have listed above in one way or another and if given the option now I would get a tele-extender (TE) from either televue or explore scientific. The latter being a lower costing option.

You'd use a TE as a barlow for visual?

[Don Pensack]

A telecentric Barlow will usually workbest, avoiding the eye relief extension and vignetting of the conventional Barlow.

TeleVue calls theirs the PowerMate, while ES calls theirs the Focal Extender.

[John]

Meade used to have a TeleXtender which I think is the same thing.

 

[bomberbaz]

1 hour ago, sputniksteve said:

You'd use a TE as a barlow for visual?

Yes and it works brilliantly

[bomberbaz]

It was only recently I re-read the difference between a telecentric barlow and a standard barlow. Cannot remember the webpage but it was a good janet and john type explanation. Gave me a much better understanding of the mechanics of the telecentric version and I understand now why the price difference.

I have heard but not verified that there is no discernible difference on the clarity of the views from a telecentric barlow and a standard barlow but standard barlows as @Don Pensack states can play games with the eye relief and also introduce vignetting. Especially in shorty versions. 

I also did a little research on 2 and 3 lens standard barlows and found this statement on the oreilly.com webpage:

Ignore the marketing hype. It doesn’t matter if a Barlow has two or three elements or is described as “apochromatic” (which is marketing-speak for a 3-element Barlow). What matters is the figure and polish level of the lenses and their coatings and the mechanical quality of the Barlow. There are superb 2-element Barlows, including both Tele Vue models, and very poor 3-element Barlows.

The fact televue do a two element barlow says a lot so it is something to bear in mind when researching your next model. 

Steve

 

[John]

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

It was only recently I re-read the difference between a telecentric barlow and a standard barlow. Cannot remember the webpage but it was a good janet and john type explanation. Gave me a much better understanding of the mechanics of the telecentric version and I understand now why the price difference.

I have heard but not verified that there is no discernible difference on the clarity of the views from a telecentric barlow and a standard barlow but standard barlows as @Don Pensack states can play games with the eye relief and also introduce vignetting. Especially in shorty versions. 

I also did a little research on 2 and 3 lens standard barlows and found this statement on the oreilly.com webpage:

Ignore the marketing hype. It doesn’t matter if a Barlow has two or three elements or is described as “apochromatic” (which is marketing-speak for a 3-element Barlow). What matters is the figure and polish level of the lenses and their coatings and the mechanical quality of the Barlow. There are superb 2-element Barlows, including both Tele Vue models, and very poor 3-element Barlows.

The fact televue do a two element barlow says a lot so it is something to bear in mind when researching your next model. 

Steve

 

Interesting thread on here a couple of years back illustrated the differences between how a barlow and a teleextender / focal extender / Powermate works:

 

[RobertI]

4 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Ignore the marketing hype. It doesn’t matter if a Barlow has two or three elements or is described as “apochromatic” (which is marketing-speak for a 3-element Barlow). What matters is the figure and polish level of the lenses and their coatings and the mechanical quality of the Barlow. There are superb 2-element Barlows, including both Tele Vue models, and very poor 3-element Barlows

 

2 hours ago, John said:

Interesting thread on here a couple of years back illustrated the differences between how a barlow and a teleextender / focal extender / Powermate works:

Great information, thanks both. I am new to the world of barlows and teleextenders so this is all very helpful (despite the fact I have already bought the Baader!)

[John]

1 minute ago, RobertI said:

 

Great information, thanks both. I am new to the world of barlows and teleextenders so this is all very helpful (despite the fact I have already bought the Baader!)

I've owned Powermates, TeleXtenders etc in the past and they are very good.

Now though I'm happy with the simple Baader 2.25x barlow. It works really well

[Don Pensack]

Because I have so many eyepieces, I don't use a Barlow any more, but when I did, the Baader VIP was my favorite--really nice.

But my best views were always with the TeleVue Powermate, that just seemed to add magnification and had no other noticeable issues at all.