Ethos comfort-cups up or down?

[Dantooine]

How do you prefer to view with your ethos? Some like the cups up with eye nested, some roll them down and hover. 
 

I recently bought an eyeguard extender for my pan 27 and loved it. I’ve now done the same with some ethos and find it very comfortable for eye placement with the cup rolled down. It is firmer than the soft rubber and works well for me, it’s sort of like using a wider Delos. 

[Stardaze]

Early days for me, but definitely nestled. Find it nice to have some contact than hovering. 
 

My badly made point elsewhere was that I need to add some extension to increase the focus point.

@John with the baader 28mm extension, does that change the clamping point? Or do I need parfocal spacer rings? Only need a couple of mm to gain focus?

[Rob_UK_SE]

I use the 21, 13, 8 and 6...

I prefer to see a clearly defined field stop so it’s eye cup down for me. With the eye cup raised I have to push my eye right into it. I have experienced discomfort due to pressure around the bridge of my nose when trying to take in the full 100 degrees this way. For some reason, the eye relief also feels a little tighter on the 6mm, but it is manageable. The 13mm and 8mm are, for me at least, very comfortable with the cup down.

My preferred technique is to lightly touch my eyebrow at the top of the cup (12 o’clock position). It is surprisingly easy to hold your eye position when seated for extended periods this way - including when working at smaller exit pupils.

A positive of the eye cup up is reducing the chances of reflections and extraneous light. For this reason I will occasionally raise it to improve contrast/scatter on dim DSOs.

[Dantooine]

15 minutes ago, Rob_UK_SE said:

I use the 21, 13, 8 and 6...

I prefer to see a clearly defined field stop so it’s eye cup down for me. With the eye cup raised I have to push my eye right into it. I have experienced discomfort due to pressure around the bridge of my nose when trying to take in the full 100 degrees this way. For some reason, the eye relief also feels a little tighter on the 6mm, but it is manageable. The 13mm and 8mm are, for me at least, very comfortable with the cup down.

My preferred technique is to lightly touch my eyebrow at the top of the cup (12 o’clock position). It is surprisingly easy to hold your eye position when seated for extended periods this way - including when working at smaller exit pupils.

A positive of the eye cup up is reducing the chances of reflections and extraneous light. For this reason I will occasionally raise it to improve contrast/scatter on dim DSOs.

I’ve tried the rested brow but when standing it’s not great. It’s amazing how wobbly you can make yourself this way in the dark.  Really must take a chair out. Trouble is I normally start on tip toe trying to get the planets as they come over the hedge. 

[Rob_UK_SE]

On the occasions that I have used my scopes standing up, I have found a trekking pole really useful to steady myself. Holding onto the back of a garden chair can also really help. As I try to observe with a small towel or blanket over my head and/or a hood up in the winter (to block out extraneous light and maintain dark adapted vision) I find sitting down essential to avoid embarrassing balance issues!

 

 

[John]

Eye cups up for me. I like to nestle my eye socket into a soft eye cup. No problem seeing the whole field of view I've found, unlike some other 100's that I've used. I observe standing 95% of the time.

I used the eye guard extender on the TV 32mm plossl when I used to have one because the rubber eye cup on that is not quite long enough. Don't need one with the Ethos's

This is a personal preference thing I think.

[Don Pensack]

I regularly observe at a cold high altitude site.  It's not uncommon for temperatures to reach 3°C in August and -18°C in December.  Eyecup up, eye nestled into cup, is a prescription for immediate fogging of the cold eyepiece.

If it still fogs with the eyecup in the down position, I remove the eyecup altogether to allow more air to circulate in between the eyepiece and my eye.

[I also keep a Japanese folding fan in my pocket to wave at the eyepiece to quickly evaporate any fog on the eyepiece in the event it does fog up.  Don't laugh.  It works.]

[avtaram]

I've replaced the Ethos eyecup with a winged eyecup that came with a Morpheus eyepiece which I find more comfortable.

I use it in the up position.

Avtar

[iPeace]

55 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

[I also keep a Japanese folding fan in my pocket to wave at the eyepiece to quickly evaporate any fog on the eyepiece in the event it does fog up.  Don't laugh.  It works.]

It does! I use an optics blower - you know, one of those rubber syringes used for blowing dust off lenses, etc.

[Dantooine]

Quite a lot of weird and wonderful ideas are coming out of the woodwork here. It’s funny how people come up with ways that work for them. Ingenious. 

[Pete Presland]

2 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

I regularly observe at a cold high altitude site.  It's not uncommon for temperatures to reach 3°C in August and -18°C in December.  Eyecup up, eye nestled into cup, is a prescription for immediate fogging of the cold eyepiece.

If it still fogs with the eyecup in the down position, I remove the eyecup altogether to allow more air to circulate in between the eyepiece and my eye.

[I also keep a Japanese folding fan in my pocket to wave at the eyepiece to quickly evaporate any fog on the eyepiece in the event it does fog up.  Don't laugh.  It works.]

Sorry could not help laughing 😀 at least its dark and compared to the Solar hood i wear in daylight though.........

[Pete Presland]

I also prefer up as well, i just like the feeling similar to how @John described it

[scarp15]

Eye relief on the ethos range is 15mm, quite good for, non spectacle wearing, relaxed eye placement, cup always up, never questioned this really, works fine. Also retains a little distance from transferring any grease onto glass surface.

[niallk]

Cups down for me

I use a 12V hairdryer on its cold / no heat setting to clear my secondary on a bad dewy night or from EPs - just the air movement proves effective to clear them.

[Dantooine]

1 hour ago, niallk said:

Cups down for me

I use a 12V hairdryer on its cold / no heat setting to clear my secondary on a bad dewy night or from EPs - just the air movement proves effective to clear them.

That’s a strange sound for people to hear out in the garden in the dark. There’s some really odd things popping up in this thread. Keep em coming as some new ideas are forming. 

[Dantooine]

4 hours ago, John said:

Eye cups up for me. I like to nestle my eye socket into a soft eye cup. No problem seeing the whole field of view I've found, unlike some other 100's that I've used. I observe standing 95% of the time.

I used the eye guard extender on the TV 32mm plossl when I used to have one because the rubber eye cup on that is not quite long enough. Don't need one with the Ethos's

This is a personal preference thing I think.

I wonder if the other 5% of the time is spent getting up after you’ve lost balance 🤣

[niallk]

4 hours ago, Dantooine said:

That’s a strange sound for people to hear out in the garden in the dark. There’s some really odd things popping up in this thread. Keep em coming as some new ideas are forming. 

🤣 Well maybe my neighbour installed the floodlamps in response to my hairdryer!!

They won - I go to a dark isolated spot on the coast now - so I only startle the seagulls.

[RickEm]

On 24/08/2020 at 12:50, John said:

Eye cups up for me. I like to nestle my eye socket into a soft eye cup. No problem seeing the whole field of view I've found, unlike some other 100's that I've used. I observe standing 95% of the time.

I used the eye guard extender on the TV 32mm plossl when I used to have one because the rubber eye cup on that is not quite long enough. Don't need one with the Ethos's

This is a personal preference thing I think.

That pretty much describes my preference.  Touching the soft eye cup in the up position stops me bobbing and weaving when I observe standing.