Tak LE 5mm

[Robindonne]

Hello.  Any suggestions of what they are worth?   One came for sale and have to pay £90,- for it.   Any help is much appreciated

Edited August 7, 2020 by Robindonne

[Rob]

Well if you paid £90.. not bad at all

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/takahashi-telescope-accessories/takahashi-le-eyepieces.html

[Robindonne]

49 minutes ago, Rob said:

Well if you paid £90.. not bad at all

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/takahashi-telescope-accessories/takahashi-le-eyepieces.html

Ha well i just paid for it.  Needed one person to convince me.  Thx. 
I dont mind if its not that good at all.  It will probably sell easy i guess(hope)

Edited August 7, 2020 by Robindonne

[Ibbo!]

I have seen them around that price when they come up for sale.

[Robindonne]

1 hour ago, Ibbo! said:

I have seen them around that price when they come up for sale.

I hope its my first small step to this (for me) unknown area😍

Edited August 7, 2020 by Robindonne

[John]

I've only owned / used one Tak LE and that was the 30mm.

Hope you enjoy the 5mm

[mikeDnight]

2 hours ago, Robindonne said:

Ha well i just paid for it.  Needed one person to convince me.  Thx. 
I dont mind if its not that good at all.  It will probably sell easy i guess(hope)

The LE's are generally thought of as being excellent eyepieces and the 5mm is often highly regarded. Tak use ED glass in its design. I bought one year's ago but the one I had suffered from significant ghosting, but this must not be a regular fault as the 5mm remains one of the favourite eyepieces in the LE range. The 18mm LE's are superb! 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Nice EPs I was looking at buying a 5mm Tak LE to increase my max magnification on my various scopes. I think you have a good bargain at £90.

[JeremyS]

I have a 5mm Tak LE and very nice it is too, @Robindonne.

Beware: those little blue Tak boxes are very beguiling and before long you might have several 🙂

 

[John]

3 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

...Beware: those little blue Tak boxes are very beguiling and before long you might have several 🙂

 

Indeed they are - I seem to have two of them but no Tak LE eyepieces !

Now where did they come from ?????

 

[JeremyS]

1 minute ago, John said:

Indeed they are - I seem to have two of them but no Tak LE eyepieces !

Now where did they come from ?????

 

I should put them up for sale, John. There are enough Tak fetishists on here that would pay good money for a prime example of an empty Tak eyepiece box 🙂

Speaking of which, how much do you want for them? 😂

[Robindonne]

I have already decided to throw away the box immediately when i have it.   Just to avoid all of the above mentioned situations

[Saganite]

That is a good price, mine sold with original boxes for £100 each, 10 months ago.

[Robindonne]

Now i’m kind of curious how this eyepieces performs compared to the other black/green eyepieces for example.   I’ve used it a couple of nights now.  Last night could really enjoy some fine details on Mars, although i had to use some in-between-clouds moment.   I can only assume it is going to show much better detail when the sky is really available for us all.   But how is this eyepiece reviewed by users who have been able to compare it to other semi-premium eyepieces?

Edited August 22, 2020 by Robindonne

[mikeDnight]

The 5mm LE is highly regarded and should give you essentially orthoscopic performance on axis, with the advantage of a wider field than the classic ortho'. Of course it can't match the wide field eyepieces in terms of width of field, but it will likely be sharper on axis than a wide field eyepiece.  

Edited August 22, 2020 by mikeDnight

[Robindonne]

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

but it will likely be sharper on axis than a wide field eyepiece.  

So just start loving it and keep it?
When you’re not that experienced yet, and not have been using often a step higher eyepieces then medium performers, its hard to tell how good or bad, this tak for example, is.   

 

thanks
 

 

[iPeace]

9 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

When you’re not that experienced yet, and not have been using often a step higher eyepieces then medium performers, its hard to tell how good or bad, this tak for example, is.

I say: just use it, and look to see how good you think it is. If it's better or worse than something else you've used, you'll either notice, or not. The difference you notice is what counts.

[Robindonne]

15 minutes ago, iPeace said:

I say: just use it, and look to see how good you think it is. If it's better or worse than something else you've used, you'll either notice, or not. The difference you notice is what counts.

Nee je hebt ook gelijk.  You are right.  But on the other hand, maybe a shame if you think there are not a lot better Eyepieces while there are.  I think for a 5 mm i’m okay now!   Thx

[iPeace]

2 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

But on the other hand, maybe a shame if you think there are not a lot better Eyepieces while there are.

True. It's what we all get into, at least at the beginning. What you will find (guaranteed) is that the more you pay, the less of an improvement you get (it could be worth it, to you, but you'll have to find out for yourself...). Plus, you need to like using it, regardless of how 'good' it is.

7 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

I think for a 5 mm i’m okay now!

That's all that matters

[John]

The problem is that there is always something slightly better out there somewhere. Before there were forums we didn't know a lot about what was available apart from the occasional magazine review or what colleagues at the astro society were using.

With the rise of the forum you can almost instantly get feedback on a wide range of alternatives from folks who use and enjoy them and occasionally from folks who used them and didn't think so much of them.

Then there are folks like me who were lucky enough to have eyepieces loaned for nothing by a kindly supplier so that I could add to the confusion by reporting on them to this forum

There is a risk that you can endlessly chase small performance gains rather than settling down to become familiar with and fully exploit what you already have. I've been down that road more than once, often with little or no overall gain which showed that I should have trusted my initial instincts that what I originally had was pretty good 

The grass will often look greener but it's not always so by the time you get there.

Enjoy your Tak 5mm LE. I'm sure it's a fine 5mm eyepiece

[Saganite]

1 hour ago, John said:

 

 

There is a risk that you can endlessly chase small performance gains rather than settling down to become familiar with and fully exploit what you already have. I've been down that road more than once, often with little or no overall gain which showed that I should have trusted my initial instincts that what I originally had was pretty good 

The grass will often look greener but it's not always so by the time you get there.

Enjoy your Tak 5mm LE. I'm sure it's a fine 5mm eyepiece

Very sound advice John with which I can identify.

I had a pair of them but struggled to merge the images, and so I sold them when I should have kept one. As MikeDnight  has suggested, on axis, I doubt you will find a much better  5mm eyepiece.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Saganite

[Timebandit]

6 hours ago, Robindonne said:

So just start loving it and keep it?
When you’re not that experienced yet, and not have been using often a step higher eyepieces then medium performers, its hard to tell how good or bad, this tak for example, is.   

 

thanks
 

 

 

 

With any good high quality eyepiece then you should notice a difference between medium performers. I know when I had the Pentax 5mm XW I noticed this was visually a noticeable step up in optical performance . Sometimes the transparency of the Sky's can sub due a noticeable difference. Or the scope itself you are using may not get the best out of certain eyepieces. I suggest you try your eyepiece over numerous nights\weeks  to get a true picture of its a step up in performance to your personal eyes before you make a decision. If you still are not getting the results that satisfy you ,then you will need to go eyepiece chasing again. I am lucky as now with the short set of Pentax XW and the BGO , then I am in a very satisfied place with my eyepiece choice these days. 

 

 

 

[John]

10 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

 

 

With any good high quality eyepiece then you should notice a difference between medium performers. I know when I had the Pentax 5mm XW I noticed this was visually a noticeable step up in optical performance . Sometimes the transparency of the Sky's can sub due a noticeable difference. Or the scope itself you are using may not get the best out of certain eyepieces. I suggest you try your eyepiece over numerous nights\weeks  to get a true picture of its a step up in performance to your personal eyes before you make a decision. If you still are not getting the results that satisfy you ,then you will need to go eyepiece chasing again. I am lucky as now with the short set of Pentax XW and the BGO , then I am in a very satisfied place with my eyepiece choice these days. 

 

 

 

Good points above - when I used to compare eyepieces I always tried to have several sessions with them on different targets, in different scopes and under differing conditions before reaching any conclusions and reporting anything on the forum. That's why there was often a fair time gap between me receiving the items and a report appearing on the forum. The UK weather is not always kind to astronomers trying to carefully compare equipment performance !

 

[omo]

On 07/08/2020 at 19:56, JeremyS said:

I have a 5mm Tak LE and very nice it is too, @Robindonne.

Beware: those little blue Tak boxes are very beguiling and before long you might have several 🙂

 

Even more worrying is the disease can manifest itself further in increasingly larger boxes

[Robindonne]

30 minutes ago, John said:

That's why there was often a fair time gap between me receiving the items and a report appearing on the forum.

And of course to extend it thát long so your whole life is filled with test-items😎.
 

No but serious. When you haven’t had the chance to compare equipment, there will always be the chance you are happy with something while there is way better equipment available(in the same pricerange!).  
 

Im very much sure all the knowledge you have, after spending years in this hobby, can give you a good idea of maximum quality of view with a certain eyepiece for example.
 

like people buying an National Geographic scope, believing its good and satisfying, and therefore never go shopping again for something else.  Waisting all their nightly hours with a bad toy cause they have no clue what better views are possible with other telescopes.  
 

thats what i was afraid of😬

Not anymore btw.  I guess the better options are marginal.  So this will be my endstation for a 5 mm.  
 

Now start upgrading all the other sizes. 
3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,27,28,29,30.  
If you can advice me about good eyepieces to fill the gaps around that Tak 5 mm im very thankful😅

Edited August 22, 2020 by Robindonne