Help! Looking for quality eyepiece for small newton

[Ruud]

I don't expect that moving to Delos will help. Delos are very nice but just about the same as Morpheus: well corrected eyepieces with long eye relief. Switching won't change much.

I already had a Delos 12 and 8mm when I got the Morpheus 6.5 and was surprised at the similarities: huge eye relief and big eye lenses on both. The eye lens in the Morpheus is a bit larger than the Delos because it has to allow for a four degrees wider field.

Maybe it was because I was already used to long eye relief that the Morpheus felt just right - except for its first generation eye cup, which was flimsy and didn't reach high enough. The current eye cup and extension ring solved the problem and now Delos and Morpheus are ergonomically equivalent. For my skull at least.

Since the M6.5 I also got an M4.5 and M17.5. 

The superb M17.5 is the best of my long eye relief eyepieces, followed by D12, D8 and M6.5 (in a tie) and lastly M4.5. They're all better than the rest of my other eyepieces.

My Morpheus are better than my Delos in two areas: wider field of view and less pincushion distortion. The latter is due to a small amount of negative AMD (angular magnification distortion) in the Morpheus, which actually increases the true field of view with a few percent above from what you would expect from a 76° eyepiece.

The Delos, although sharper at the very edge, have a 4° smaller total field, so the well corrected part of the Delos field is still smaller that that of the Morpheus. Two aspects that don't put much weight in the scale for me are the Delos having a continuously adjustable eye cup and the Morpheus being lighter. The Delos are much more expensive though.

I've not tried the M14 myself, but several people whose judgement I trust say it has an edge sharpness problem. I'm not sure if the focal ratio of the telescope plays a role in this. Read up carefully on the M14 before buying! From the M9 and M12 I've read nothing but praise and I expect they will be on a par with the M6.5. 

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I hope omicron's difficulty with his M6.5 will disappear once he gets used to the eyepiece. In the past I have needed a bit of time to get used to the occasional new eyepiece.

[Moonshane]

As daft AST it sounds, sometimes a different scope is cheaper than a set of new eyepieces trying to force a scope into a corner where it is not comfortable. 

Maybe a solution is more to be found in something like https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-127-ota.html

 

[omikron]

11 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

 

there is my interepretation so far ... you need to keep your eye in exactly one spot to get an image, moving it even a little bit causes the image to vanish and you see black. Am I correct?

Yes and if I try to relax my eyelids a little bit ..ouch. I thought of switching to Pentax because it has the same shape as my "clone" or i can try with Planetary ED. The same problem comes to me from some mini binoculars that i have owned, but I thought it depended on the exit pupil (im not sure).

I speak only of my feeling, the Morpheus is certainly excellent. But we are probably all a little different and we have different needs. May be depend on the combo: fast and short newton with 6.5mm eyepieces.

With the current 28mm eyepiece that is provided by skywatcher, i rest my eye and can relax for a long time without blackouts, even moving slightly (inevitable in long sessions); so im looking for supercomfort eyepieces, as in my old 70's trinovid (leica) binoculars inherited. I like to lose myself looking at the sky.

Edited July 15, 2020 by omikron

[AstroMuni]

5 hours ago, omikron said:

Yes and if I try to relax my eyelids a little bit ..ouch. I thought of switching to Pentax because it has the same shape as my "clone" or i can try with Planetary ED. The same problem comes to me from some mini binoculars that i have owned, but I thought it depended on the exit pupil (im not sure).

I speak only of my feeling, the Morpheus is certainly excellent. But we are probably all a little different and we have different needs. May be depend on the combo: fast and short newton with 6.5mm eyepieces.

With the current 28mm eyepiece that is provided by skywatcher, i rest my eye and can relax for a long time without blackouts, even moving slightly (inevitable in long sessions); so im looking for supercomfort eyepieces, as in my old 70's trinovid (leica) binoculars inherited. I like to lose myself looking at the sky.

That is quite normal (atleast for me ). At higher magnifications I find its harder to find that sweet spot from which I can see clearest. Just takes a matter of time.

If you wish to continue as a visual astronomer, you will need to get a comfortable seat and keep looking for the best moments! OR you could invest in a webcam or one of the astronomy cameras and see from the comfort of your PC screen. 🙂

 

[John]

Some Tele Vue eyepieces include a small circular mask which is placed immediately above the eye lens to help find the exit pupil of the eyepiece for those who have difficulty with this. It is called a pupil guide.

As the focal length of the eyepiece gets shorter, finding and holding the exit pupil (the small circular spot of light that exits an eyepiece) becomes more challenging because the exit pupil reduces in diameter. Holding the head still, so that the eye is both central and at the right distance from the eye lens, becomes even more important.

When doing outreach I tend to use longer focal length eyepieces for this reason. People who have not used a scope can find positioning the eye tricky with a short focal length eyepiece.

 

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

This is the small circular disc that @John is referring to.

Mine came with a TV 6mm Radian. I believe they also were included with the TV Nagler type 4 series too.
Instructions on how to use it here -->TV Pupil Guide Instructions.pdf

[John]

1 hour ago, John said:

Some Tele Vue eyepieces include a small circular mask which is placed immediately above the eye lens to help find the exit pupil of the eyepiece for those who have difficulty with this. It is called a pupil guide.

As the focal length of the eyepiece gets shorter, finding and holding the exit pupil (the small circular spot of light that exits an eyepiece) becomes more challenging because the exit pupil reduces in diameter. Holding the head still, so that the eye is both central and at the right distance from the eye lens, becomes even more important.

When doing outreach I tend to use longer focal length eyepieces for this reason. People who have not used a scope can find positioning the eye tricky with a short focal length eyepiece.

 

 

On this topic, I find it important to position the eye cup correctly to ensure the you get the best from an eyepiece. Some eyepieces have twist up and down eye cups or top sections and, if you do not wear glasses when observing, generally the upper positions work the best. If you do wear glasses when observing, generally the lower eye cup position works the best. I use the word "generally" here because we are not all the same of course with regard to our eyes, face shape, depth of eye socket etc, etc.

I like to use the eye cup as my guide that my eye is in the right place so my preference is to gently nestle my eye brow / eye socket against it. I have come across a few eyepieces where the eye relief is so long that the correct eye position involves "hovering" the head above the eyepiece top and this I find less than relaxing for lengthy periods making maintaining the correct eye position more difficult than it should be.

These are my personal findings and preferences however. Yours may well be different !