Baader Morpheus range - General chat

[LDW1]

7 hours ago, Louis D said:

Lucky you.  The ones I got from ebay for my 12mm NT4 smell a bit like inner tubes or car tires.  I don't know how to predict the smell or lack of it with a particular O-ring supplier.

Use the good quality North American built rubber or neoprene rings, no smell ! Unless you have super sensitive sense of smell or are allergic to ?

Edited October 15, 2022 by LDW1

[F15Rules]

On 12/10/2022 at 13:34, badhex said:

See, I knew I would get drummed out of the brownies for criticising the Morpheus 🤣🤣🤣

..er, you were in the Brownies, Stu??🤔😁

Dave

Oops..just saw Alan's reference before mine..anyway, each to their own!😂

Edited October 15, 2022 by F15Rules
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[F15Rules]

I have the 9mm and 17.5mm Morpheus and a recently acquired a Pentax XL 10.5mm.

I'd previously owned an XL 10.5mm which had a few particles of debris inside the sealed body, which would move about and sometimes adhere to the inner face of the top lens..they could be shaken off, but not removed altogether; I found them rather annoying, so I sold the eyepiece with full disclosure, at a price that reflected this issue.

But the XL 10.5mm was optically a fabulous eyepiece, just like an XL5.2mm I had, which was also superb. So, when a mint, almost unused 10.5XL came up recently, I jumped on it.

Initially, I thought it would mean the sale of my 9mm Morpheus, but actually the "small" 1.5mm difference in focal length translates to about a 15% difference in my scope of 1040mm focal length..and, since both EPs take a Barlow really well, I am likely to keep both of them, and the various combinations could be quite useful.

Optically, I don't think there is much to choose in the quality of the views (apart from around 10-11 degrees more fov in the Morpheus). However, the ergonomics of both are different, and I find these to be pluses or minuses in different applications..for example, I did for a while have 2 Morpheus 17.5mm, and these made a superb binoviewing pair. I could never binoview with a pair of XLs or XWs, as their bodies are too wide.

In this respect, the design parameters of both become evident: the Morpheus range was specifically designed to be used for astro use, and to be binoviewer friendly..the Pentax XW and XLs were designed for spotting scope use, and by happy coincidence were able to be used for astronomy as well.

Given how good the Pentax' are for astro use, it does beg the question "Just how good could a Pentax range designed specifically for astro and bv use have been??"

One last personal comment, I really like the design and build of both Morpheus and Pentax ranges..I would say that in absolute build and appearance terms I just slightly prefer the looks of the Pentax: but in use, in the dark, I find both to be wonderful, optically excellent eyepiece ranges...along with my Axiom LX 23mm and 31mm UWA's, the 2 Morphs and 1 Pentax  make up the core of 5 EPs that I use the most..👍

Dave

Edited October 15, 2022 by F15Rules
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[Louis D]

12 hours ago, LDW1 said:

We sold it after 50 yrs last Sept. and miss it every night.

Good timing.  I think you sold it near the peak of the real estate market.  With rising interest rates, a forced march back to the office, and inflation raging, vacation homes aren't moving at all here in the US.

[LDW1]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Good timing.  I think you sold it near the peak of the real estate market.  With rising interest rates, a forced march back to the office, and inflation raging, vacation homes aren't moving at all here in the US.

We sold it to a young outdoors couple, by our choice, that spend all their off time in the wilds fishing and hunting. We wanted them to have it so we sold it to them for about 50% the market value, sometimes money isn't everything ! Now they are citizens of the historic Ottawa River, home of the ancients, loggers and fur traders and my wife and I are happy for it. I didn't leave them any astro gear though, but they are aware of the potential for great astronomy, lol. Especially my Morpheus eps !

[TheLookingGlass]

14 hours ago, LDW1 said:

I have the 17.5, 12.5, 9, 6.5mm Morpheus eps they are probably the best eps that I personally have ever owned. They are excellent performers in every respect, I wish they would make one in a 25 & 30mm range but I use the 31, 21mm Hyperions which are no slouch as well. That photo was taken at my remote camp in northern Ontario, Bortle 1, SQM-L 22.0 / 22.05 on clear nites right out the camp door. It is a single 13 second shot taken with my DSLR. We sold it after 50 yrs last Sept. and miss it every night. Now I view in my Bortle 4/5 backyard but Bortle 1-2 skies are less than 20-30 minutes away for my use.

Nice!

it would have been cool if they did make a 2" Morpheus, but I think the glass would be huge in order for them to make one, if I am not mistaken? Still would be nice though. Just over a year ago, I switched from the Morpheus to the APM 100's. I bought the 20mm, 13mm, 9mm and 7mm APM's. Eye relief is really good on them considering that they are 100 deg eyepieces, but cannot be used with glasses, and there are times when I need glasses when reading Stellarium on my cell phone to look for things and the glasses on, glasses off gets tedious. The views in the APM 100's are truly majestic, but the Morpheus provides me with almost 80 degrees and long eye relief and I am able to use glasses with them if I need to at times. They are also much lighter in weight. I can also get away with using them without a  coma corrector, and the views are still acceptable. The 20mm APM 100 and the 13mm APM 100 need a coma corrector, (in my 10" F/5), to be at their full potential, while the Baader Morpheus can be used w/o one. (The 12.5mm really does benefit from a coma corrector out of the three I own, but still acceptable without one).

I tried a 31mm Hyperion about 8 years ago. I compared it to a 32mm Orion Q70 and it was no better correction-wise. The astigmatism was pretty bad in the 31mm Hyperion, so I shipped it right back to the store, lol.  The brown truck goes both ways, lol. Some are more sensitive than others as far as astigmatism goes. It depends on the end user. 

That's excellent about your Bortle 1 skies!  I've only ever seen that years ago when I was in Schreiber, Ontario when I was touring in a band, lol. I think I was about 19 LOL. I can only drive to Bortle 4 skies sometimes. Only thing good from my yard is planets or the moon.

Cheerz!

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, TheLookingGlass said:

it would have been cool if they did make a 2" Morpheus, but I think the glass would be huge in order for them to make one, if I am not mistaken?

It might be possible to limit image forming lens growth if a focal reducer first stage as with the 30mm APM UFF were employed in the design.  In the diagram below, the first group acts as a focal reducer while I believe the second group acts as a traditional Smyth lens.  The upper 3 groups are the traditional Panoptic style image forming section where rays are first spread out and then reconverged.

[TheLookingGlass]

23 minutes ago, Louis D said:

It might be possible to limit image forming lens growth if a focal reducer first stage as with the 30mm APM UFF were employed in the design.  In the diagram below, the first group acts as a focal reducer while I believe the second group acts as a traditional Smyth lens.  The upper 3 groups are the traditional Panoptic style image forming section where rays are first spread out and then reconverged.

Excellent eyepiece. I did own two of those at different times. Really nice correction. Only thing weird was that the field went funky when using with filters. Some eyepieces with long eye relief show this, while the Morpheus work great with filters. I found the same with the 22mm Ultima LX. Great eyepiece with insanely good edge correction, but once a filter is used, it was hard to get a good view.

I wonder why this happens with certain eyepieces? Strange.

[LDW1]

2 hours ago, TheLookingGlass said:

Nice!

it would have been cool if they did make a 2" Morpheus, but I think the glass would be huge in order for them to make one, if I am not mistaken? Still would be nice though. Just over a year ago, I switched from the Morpheus to the APM 100's. I bought the 20mm, 13mm, 9mm and 7mm APM's. Eye relief is really good on them considering that they are 100 deg eyepieces, but cannot be used with glasses, and there are times when I need glasses when reading Stellarium on my cell phone to look for things and the glasses on, glasses off gets tedious. The views in the APM 100's are truly majestic, but the Morpheus provides me with almost 80 degrees and long eye relief and I am able to use glasses with them if I need to at times. They are also much lighter in weight. I can also get away with using them without a  coma corrector, and the views are still acceptable. The 20mm APM 100 and the 13mm APM 100 need a coma corrector, (in my 10" F/5), to be at their full potential, while the Baader Morpheus can be used w/o one. (The 12.5mm really does benefit from a coma corrector out of the three I own, but still acceptable without one).

I tried a 31mm Hyperion about 8 years ago. I compared it to a 32mm Orion Q70 and it was no better correction-wise. The astigmatism was pretty bad in the 31mm Hyperion, so I shipped it right back to the store, lol.  The brown truck goes both ways, lol. Some are more sensitive than others as far as astigmatism goes. It depends on the end user. 

That's excellent about your Bortle 1 skies!  I've only ever seen that years ago when I was in Schreiber, Ontario when I was touring in a band, lol. I think I was about 19 LOL. I can only drive to Bortle 4 skies sometimes. Only thing good from my yard is planets or the moon.

Cheerz!

I owned a couple of 100° eps, I was never too keen on them, I have a 31.5mm, 90° Antares widefield which is pretty decent but normally I prefer anything below 80°.

[Ags]

1 minute ago, LDW1 said:

I have a 31.5mm, 90° Antares widefield

I would like to own one of those... seems the perfect 2" eyepiece for an SCT.

[Don Pensack]

1 hour ago, TheLookingGlass said:

Excellent eyepiece. I did own two of those at different times. Really nice correction. Only thing weird was that the field went funky when using with filters. Some eyepieces with long eye relief show this, while the Morpheus work great with filters. I found the same with the 22mm Ultima LX. Great eyepiece with insanely good edge correction, but once a filter is used, it was hard to get a good view.

I wonder why this happens with certain eyepieces? Strange.

I can see a couple reasons:

1) vignetting.  Not all filters have the same clear aperture.  If the aperture of the filter is smaller than the field stop in the eyepiece, due to its proximity to the field stop, some hard vignetting can take place.

Since the head moves, this vignetting would float around the edges.

This problem can be mitigated by sitting to view and using eyepieces with a bit less eye relief.

2) the strongly reduced light throughput in the eyepiece+filter combination might make acquiring and holding an exit pupil a bit harder.  I see this with eyepieces that have large exit pupils when I use

an H-ß filter, for instance.  The exit pupil is so little brighter than the area outside the field, finding and holding the exit pupil can become, as some say, "finicky".

This problem is mitigated by being fully dark adapted and being under dark skies.

 

As to the 30mm APM discussed above, it works very well with filters, but I put the filter on the front of the Paracorr, not the eyepiece, so the filter is very far away from the focal plane and any vignetting that occurs (I'm sure there is some)

is so far out of focus as to be insignificant in a visual sense.

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, LDW1 said:

I owned a couple of 100° eps, I was never too keen on them, I have a 31.5mm, 90° Antares widefield which is pretty decent but normally I prefer anything below 80°.

Have you ever written up your experiences with the Antares?  It didn't do too well at f/5.2 in this report on CN.

[TheLookingGlass]

58 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

I can see a couple reasons:

1) vignetting.  Not all filters have the same clear aperture.  If the aperture of the filter is smaller than the field stop in the eyepiece, due to its proximity to the field stop, some hard vignetting can take place.

Since the head moves, this vignetting would float around the edges.

This problem can be mitigated by sitting to view and using eyepieces with a bit less eye relief.

2) the strongly reduced light throughput in the eyepiece+filter combination might make acquiring and holding an exit pupil a bit harder.  I see this with eyepieces that have large exit pupils when I use

an H-ß filter, for instance.  The exit pupil is so little brighter than the area outside the field, finding and holding the exit pupil can become, as some say, "finicky".

This problem is mitigated by being fully dark adapted and being under dark skies.

 

As to the 30mm APM discussed above, it works very well with filters, but I put the filter on the front of the Paracorr, not the eyepiece, so the filter is very far away from the focal plane and any vignetting that occurs (I'm sure there is some)

is so far out of focus as to be insignificant in a visual sense.

 I notice when viewing through the eyepieces without a filter in place that when I move my head slightly up, down, left and right that small "dark areas" appear. It is very subtle, but it is noticeable. Some other eyepieces I have owned in the past never exhibited this. When I add the filter to the threads on the bottom, this phenomenon is even more noticeable, and the exit pupil gets a bit harder to hold. If I put a hood over my head, or cup my hands around both eyes, it goes away.

I have put the filter on the bottom of the coma corrector and just like you said, it goes away.

[Don Pensack]

12 minutes ago, TheLookingGlass said:

 I notice when viewing through the eyepieces without a filter in place that when I move my head slightly up, down, left and right that small "dark areas" appear. It is very subtle, but it is noticeable. Some other eyepieces I have owned in the past never exhibited this. When I add the filter to the threads on the bottom, this phenomenon is even more noticeable, and the exit pupil gets a bit harder to hold. If I put a hood over my head, or cup my hands around both eyes, it goes away.

I have put the filter on the bottom of the coma corrector and just like you said, it goes away.

There you go.  Hard vignetting compared to soft vignetting.

In your first example, your pupil size is increasing.  I'll have to think about why that would have any effect.

[Louis D]

@TheLookingGlass could be seeing subtle SAEP with the smaller entrance pupil.  I believe SAEP becomes harder to detect with larger entrance pupils.  Notice that the smaller the entrance pupil, the more easily mid-field rays will be cutoff.

 

[LDW1]

23 hours ago, Louis D said:

Have you ever written up your experiences with the Antares?  It didn't do too well at f/5.2 in this report on CN.

My scopes are 5.4, 5.5, 6.4, 11.4, no real problem with any of them. I am not a nit picker though, I mean if I looked hard enough I would probably find some small, inconsequential whatever. I never right a detailed report, it just causes a name calling argument many times, I learned that on a popular North American site. I leave it up to more knowledgeable astronomers to get into that, I just mention my experience in broad terms, for anyone that wants to read them.

Edited October 16, 2022 by LDW1

[Don Pensack]

19 hours ago, Louis D said:

@TheLookingGlass could be seeing subtle SAEP with the smaller entrance pupil.  I believe SAEP becomes harder to detect with larger entrance pupils.  Notice that the smaller the entrance pupil, the more easily mid-field rays will be cutoff.

 

Hundreds and hundreds of reports on various eyepieces show that SAEP is less noticeable in smaller exit pupils.

I think it's because the same curve with a smaller width = less curvature in the exit pupil.

The Vixen SSWs were a good example--horrendous SAEP in the 14mm, but unnoticeable in the 3.5mm.

Another example: the Meade UWA S4000 eyepieces--14mm had serious SAEP, the 4.7mm had essentially zero as far as the eye noticed.

[Louis D]

51 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Hundreds and hundreds of reports on various eyepieces show that SAEP is less noticeable in smaller exit pupils.

I think it's because the same curve with a smaller width = less curvature in the exit pupil.

The Vixen SSWs were a good example--horrendous SAEP in the 14mm, but unnoticeable in the 3.5mm.

Another example: the Meade UWA S4000 eyepieces--14mm had serious SAEP, the 4.7mm had essentially zero as far as the eye noticed.

We're not talking about exit pupils which are dependent on the eyepiece/telescope combo.  We're talking about the entrance pupil which is dependent on the diameter of the human eye's pupil.  Certainly, the limiting factor is the smaller of the two.  That is, even your pupil is fully dilated, a tiny exit exit pupil from the eyepiece determines the size of the system's combined pupil.  Since the human pupil won't contract much smaller than 2mm, an exit pupil of 2mm or less is never going to exhibit SAEP as long as the observer remains centered over the exit pupil.  If the eye drifts off center, there is a chance SAEP could be seen.  Drop down to a 0.5mm exit pupil, and the chances of seeing SAEP would become nil.

[Don Pensack]

11 minutes ago, Louis D said:

We're not talking about exit pupils which are dependent on the eyepiece/telescope combo.  We're talking about the entrance pupil which is dependent on the diameter of the human eye's pupil.  Certainly, the limiting factor is the smaller of the two.  That is, even your pupil is fully dilated, a tiny exit exit pupil from the eyepiece determines the size of the system's combined pupil.  Since the human pupil won't contract much smaller than 2mm, an exit pupil of 2mm or less is never going to exhibit SAEP as long as the observer remains centered over the exit pupil.  If the eye drifts off center, there is a chance SAEP could be seen.  Drop down to a 0.5mm exit pupil, and the chances of seeing SAEP would become nil.

Exactly.  Which is why SAEP in longer focal length eyepieces is more visible.  It's not the eyepiece per se, it's the exit pupil created.

[Stardust1]

I was wondering anyone using their Morpheus eyepieces with the binoviewer?

How does the Morpheus behave on bright object like the Moon? 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

On 19/10/2022 at 14:59, Stardust1 said:

I was wondering anyone using their Morpheus eyepieces with the binoviewer?

How does the Morpheus behave on bright object like the Moon? 

Morning,

As I understand it, Quite a few on here use a pair of  17.5mm Morphs for bino viewing. Hopefully someone can confirm back on the viewing experience.

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

On 13/10/2022 at 23:32, badhex said:

Drifting back to the topic, the M43 extensions have been super helpful for me with eye placement on the Morpheus. The 4.5mm in particular has been tricky to get right, but I eventually solved it using a combination of extension plus rubber eyecup plus 2x rubber hairbands. I need to replace them with proper o-rings when I can but they work well enough for now. 

I quite like that solution. I two find the 4.5 a little fussy for eye placement.

I tend to put up with it as it doesnt get a whole lot of use in my 12" dob. I am intending to use it for Uranus & Neptune viewing in the coming weeks and will bear the hair band trcik in mind.

 

Baz

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Morning,

As I understand it, Quite a few on here use a pair of  17.5mm Morphs for bino viewing. Hopefully someone can confirm back on the viewing experience.

 

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Hi all,

I am here digging this thread back up to adivse, After considerable use, I still dont know which is my favorite the 9mm or 17.5mm - They are both amazing eps and IMO the best performers of the range.

Cheers

[badhex]

20 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Hi all,

I am here digging this thread back up to adivse, After considerable use, I still dont know which is my favorite the 9mm or 17.5mm - They are both amazing eps and IMO the best performers of the range.

Cheers

I can't speak for the 9mm as I don't have that FL but I can say that the 17.5mm is overall a more enjoyable EP to use than the 4.5mm. I have a Pentax XW 10mm, which is also a fantastic EP. I wonder if anyone has done a shootout between the two. @Louis DI can't remember if you own both (or either) of those EPs?