Baader Morpheus range - General chat

[Barry-W-Fenner]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I have a 12.5mm on its way to me, seemed to have good reviews and is very well priced compared with others. If I get on with it, I may try the 17.5mm too. It will be interesting to compare with the Leica Zoom and see whether I stick with the convenience of the Zoom start using fixed focal length eyepieces more.

The 12.5mm is the only one in the range I dont have. I have read that is is a very good EP though Stu. With your EP knowledge  I will be interested to hear your thoughts on it

 

I dont have a huge amount of experiance with other EP brands but I do know that the 17.5mm is a very fine EP will excellent eye relief. I dont think you will be dissapointed with a 17.5

 

Cheers Baz

[TheLookingGlass]

I own the 9mm, 6.5mm and 12.5mm. The 9mm has the longest eye relief, with the 12.5mm very close. I have no problems with any of them as far as eye placement goes. Yes, the 6.5mm has shorter eye relief, but I don't use the M48 extension on it, nor do I use it on the others. I find therm very easy to use with just the supplied eye cups that have threads on them.  For me, the 6.5mm is do-able with glasses, but they are almost touching.

If you put one of the older eye cups on the 6.5mm and you do not use glasses, (some like to "hover" above the lens), then you gain 1mm in eye relief.

I've also tried the 17.5mm and really liked it.

[badhex]

+1 for the 17.5mm fan club over here. 

I had an 18mm Meade 5000 UWA which was the first expensive EP I bought, but it after storage ended up with some strange field lens coating issue. I was originally looking for another to replace it as I loved the 'porthole' feeling but then @Chinapig put me on to the Morpheus and I'm so glad he did. 

In comparison, the Morpheus is a far superior EP. Physically it's lighter and less bulky, the eye lens is huge. Where the Meade was a porthole, the Morpheus is Ten Forward on the USS Enterprise! 😂 I also use the extension ring for ideal eye positioning, and the glow in the dark lettering is a nice touch, although I only own one Morpheus so it's easy to locate in the dark anyway. 

Optically also far superior - can only echo what others have said - so rather than technical details, an anecdote: When I was first starting out in astronomy I once saw M13 through a huge 12" dob and was totally blown away. So many stars! Before I got the Morpheus I'd had a bit of a break from astronomy for various reasons, and I had that same awestruck feeling seeing the whole Pleiades through the Morpheus - even under Bortle 8 skies - and I'm sure I could see stars in there I'd never picked up before. It reminded me exactly why I love astronomy so much. 

Needless to say it's spent the most time in use of all my eyepieces since. 

Edited April 22, 2021 by badhex

[Barry-W-Fenner]

On 16/04/2021 at 09:31, Stu said:

I have a 12.5mm on its way to me, seemed to have good reviews and is very well priced compared with others. If I get on with it, I may try the 17.5mm too. It will be interesting to compare with the Leica Zoom and see whether I stick with the convenience of the Zoom start using fixed focal length eyepieces more.

How you getting on with the 12.5mm Stu?! 👍

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

How you getting on with the 12.5mm Stu?! 👍

Not here yet. I think something else I ordered is not available yet so it’s held up. Had almost forgotten about it! Will be a nice surprise when it comes 😀

[Barry-W-Fenner]

I have put the extension ring in the 6.5 & 4.5 now. The 4.5 has never been an issue for comfort to be honest. However I now find the 6.5 to be an improvement from an eye relief perspective. If I put my eye well pressed on the eye cup I have had some great views of the moon this week with my Bresser AR102s   it feels like I kind of need to view  somewhere in between the extension spacing  as I really press my eye into the eyecup to get the best views.

Cheers

Baz

Edited April 23, 2021 by Barry-W-Fenner

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

I have put the extension ring in the 6.5 & 4.5 now. The 4.5 has never been an issue for comfort to be honest. However I now find the 6.5 to be an improvement from an eye relief perspective. If I put my eye well pressed on the eye cup I have had some great views of the moon this week with my Bresser AR102s   it feels like I'm in a kind of viewing somewhere in the middle of having and no having the extension on as I really do press my eye into the eyecup to get get views.

Cheers

Baz

You might want to see if there's a 43mm diameter replacement eye cup out there that's taller than stock one but shorter than the combined extension/cup height.

[johninderby]

deleted

Edited April 23, 2021 by johninderby

[F15Rules]

Great thread, Baz, thanks for posting 👍. As a big fan of Morpheus I meant to reply earlier but "life" got in the way (don't let anyone tell you that retirement brings lots more free time!)😂.

My Morpheus "journey" began soon after their initial launch..I bought the 14mm new, when FLO had them on offer at £149, on the basis that I liked Baader stuff, (apart from the Hyperion range which I never took to): I've owned several Hyperion zooms which are excellent, and I still have a Hyperion Barlow 2.25x which is also excellent: I also had their Maxbright binoviewers in the past, with good results.

I was shocked to find that the 14mm Morpheus comprehensively beat the Pentax 14mmXW I owned at the time..shocked, because XWs are living legends in the eyepiece world (and I still believe the shorter focal lengths, especially the 7mm and 10mm, are superb). However, the 14mm and 20mm XWs do suffer significant field curvature, and the Morpheus 14mm (and Vixen LVW 22mm Vs the XW20mm) really showed this up. I ended up selling my 14 and 20 mm XWs, and bought the Morph 14 and LVW 22mm to replace them.. the Morpheus' extra 6 degrees fov was really noticeable, and the Morph edged the XW on contrast as well.

I would have liked the 12.5mm Morpheus too, but at the time all this was happening (2016), I was negotiating to buy my beloved Tak FS128 apo scope: this was a massive purchase for me, and necessitated my selling almost all my other equipment and scopes to fund the Tak..so I never did buy the 12.5mm then, even though I've always felt that the 12-12.5mm focal length is a sweet spot for eyepieces..nowadays, that slot is filled by a very nice Nagler T2 12mm 82deg unit. 

I eventually sold the Morph 14mm (and a 9mm I had bought later, it was excellent) on the altar of the Tak purchase (which process took fully 10 months to complete!), and for a while I was Morph-less while I waited for fully 3 years until the launch of the 17.5mm to finish the range.

The 17.5mm was worth waiting for! I bought one new, and later a second one I found used, in great condition, for Binoviewing.. they were superb in the BV, and I was able (just) to use them in the Tak natively, ie without a Barlow lens, giving just under 60x magnification. The 17.5mm are significantly smaller than other Morphs, and I believe one of the reasons for the long delay in their launch was Baaders' wish to have the 17.5mms optimised for use in their Maxbright BV's MK1, and looking ahead, for the MkII's which were launched just before Covid but which are virtually unobtainable at the moment.

I sold my BV's and one of my 17.5s as part of my plan to buy a pair of MKIIs late this year, but I kept one of the 17.5s for cyclops viewing, as I like it so much.

For me, the standout features of the Morpheus range are:

- Class leading contrast

- Wonderful coatings and transmission, the best I have seen

- Superb viewing comfort, and the winged eyeguards really do help cut stray light down, especially in a binoviewer

- work great in the 2.25x Hyperion Barlow. My 17.5mm reduces to an effective 7.77mm, giving 133x in the Tak: a very useful magnification for Jupiter for example

- I find the 76 Deg field a sweet spot between genuinely widefield views and longer eye relief than with most UWAs such as Nagler 82degs for example.

- no barrel undercuts, which I loathe..the safety kerfs feature really works but never snags on diagonals or compression rings.

Almost inevitably, I suppose, the price of the Morpheus has been edging up, to closer to the Pentax XW range. But I still think they offer good value for the performance they deliver, and if you can find a nice used one for c £130-£150, they are outstanding value👍.

Highly recommended 😊.

Dave

Edited April 23, 2021 by F15Rules

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

the price of the Morpheus has been edging up, to closer to the Pentax XW range.

Only $30 separates them in the US right now with the XWs on sale for $269 and the Morpheus at $239.  The TV Delos are way more expensive at $352.

I paid $229 each in 1998 for my 14mm and 5.2mm Pentax XLs.  That works out to about $372 today, so the XWs are lower in price than ever if you consider them the logical extension of the XLs.

[Jiggy 67]

11 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Great thread, Baz, thanks for posting 👍. As a big fan of Morpheus I meant to reply earlier but "life" got in the way (don't let anyone tell you that retirement brings lots more free time!)😂.

My Morpheus "journey" began soon after their initial launch..I bought the 14mm new, when FLO had them on offer at £149, on the basis that I liked Baader stuff, (apart from the Hyperion range which I never took to): I've owned several Hyperion zooms which are excellent, and I still have a Hyperion Barlow 2.25x which is also excellent: I also had their Maxbright binoviewers in the past, with good results.

I was shocked to find that the 14mm Morpheus comprehensively beat the Pentax 14mmXW I owned at the time..shocked, because XWs are living legends in the eyepiece world (and I still believe the shorter focal lengths, especially the 7mm and 10mm, are superb). However, the 14mm and 20mm XWs do suffer significant field curvature, and the Morpheus 14mm (and Vixen LVW 22mm Vs the XW20mm) really showed this up. I ended up selling my 14 and 20 mm XWs, and bought the Morph 14 and LVW 22mm to replace them.. the Morpheus' extra 6 degrees fov was really noticeable, and the Morph edged the XW on contrast as well.

I would have liked the 12.5mm Morpheus too, but at the time all this was happening (2016), I was negotiating to buy my beloved Tak FS128 apo scope: this was a massive purchase for me, and necessitated my selling almost all my other equipment and scopes to fund the Tak..so I never did buy the 12.5mm then, even though I've always felt that the 12-12.5mm focal length is a sweet spot for eyepieces..nowadays, that slot is filled by a very nice Nagler T2 12mm 82deg unit. 

I eventually sold the Morph 14mm (and a 9mm I had bought later, it was excellent) on the altar of the Tak purchase (which process took fully 10 months to complete!), and for a while I was Morph-less while I waited for fully 3 years until the launch of the 17.5mm to finish the range.

The 17.5mm was worth waiting for! I bought one new, and later a second one I found used, in great condition, for Binoviewing.. they were superb in the BV, and I was able (just) to use them in the Tak natively, ie without a Barlow lens, giving just under 60x magnification. The 17.5mm are significantly smaller than other Morphs, and I believe one of the reasons for the long delay in their launch was Baaders' wish to have the 17.5mms optimised for use in their Maxbright BV's MK1, and looking ahead, for the MkII's which were launched just before Covid but which are virtually unobtainable at the moment.

I sold my BV's and one of my 17.5s as part of my plan to buy a pair of MKIIs late this year, but I kept one of the 17.5s for cyclops viewing, as I like it so much.

For me, the standout features of the Morpheus range are:

- Class leading contrast

- Wonderful coatings and transmission, the best I have seen

- Superb viewing comfort, and the winged eyeguards really do help cut stray light down, especially in a binoviewer

- work great in the 2.25x Hyperion Barlow. My 17.5mm reduces to an effective 7.77mm, giving 133x in the Tak: a very useful magnification for Jupiter for example

- I find the 76 Deg field a sweet spot between genuinely widefield views and longer eye relief than with most UWAs such as Nagler 82degs for example.

- no barrel undercuts, which I loathe..the safety kerfs feature really works but never snags on diagonals or compression rings.

Almost inevitably, I suppose, the price of the Morpheus has been edging up, to closer to the Pentax XW range. But I still think they offer good value for the performance they deliver, and if you can find a nice used one for c £130-£150, they are outstanding value👍.

Highly recommended 😊.

Dave

Have to agree with everything you’ve said Dave. I was lucky as I used lockdown and the petrol money saved by working from home to buy one a month. I don’t know if I need the full range but after purchasing the 17.5 first followed by the 9mm I had to buy the rest

 

[F15Rules]

28 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Have to agree with everything you’ve said Dave. I was lucky as I used lockdown and the petrol money saved by working from home to buy one a month. I don’t know if I need the full range but after purchasing the 17.5 first followed by the 9mm I had to buy the rest

 

That's a lovely sight Jiggy!👍

Thanks for sharing. How do you find the 4.5 and 6.5, given what Baz felt..are they both comfortable?

If only they'd been able to make a 24mm and 30mm too...sadly, they reached the limit for this design at 17.5mm. Still, we do have plenty of good choices at those focal lengths with other brands..

The three that I've owned (9, 14 and 17.5) all barlowed really well, and with the 2.25x Hyperion Zoom Barlow which I have owned, gave additional effective focal lengths of approximately 4, 6.2 and 7.7mm respectively..😊

Dave

[Jiggy 67]

I find the 4.5 and 6.5 really comfortable but I have added the extension ring which prevents kidney beaning. I actually find the 6.5 really useful when I add the 2.25 Barlow, in my newt, it gives me x346, just right for those small pn’s 

[Don Pensack]

19 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

I have put the extension ring in the 6.5 & 4.5 now. The 4.5 has never been an issue for comfort to be honest. However I now find the 6.5 to be an improvement from an eye relief perspective. If I put my eye well pressed on the eye cup I have had some great views of the moon this week with my Bresser AR102s   it feels like I kind of need to view  somewhere in between the extension spacing  as I really press my eye into the eyecup to get the best views.

Cheers

Baz

You do realize you can use the extension ring and fold the rubber eye cup down?

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, F15Rules said:

If only they'd been able to make a 24mm and 30mm too...sadly, they reached the limit for this design at 17.5mm. Still, we do have plenty of good choices at those focal lengths with other brands..

The 24mm and 30mm APM UFF work well at those focal lengths for folks who need long eye relief at a similar weight and size to the Morpheus.

I haven't found any eyepieces with 18mm to 20mm of comfortable eye relief and at least 75 degrees of AFOV in the 20mm to 32mm range.  I would instantly buy a 24mm to 26mm ES-92, for instance, if one were made.  I bought the 26mm Meade MWA hoping it would work.  It does turn out to have 78 degrees of easy to view field with 18mm of eye relief and an actual focal length of 25mm.  However, it has some residual SAEP (kidney beaning) even using that amount of field, so not exactly a Morpheus.

[Don Pensack]

Have you tried all of these:

brand	model	FL	AF	ER	FS	elements
Explore Scientific	82 Series	30	82	21.0	43.0	6
Masuyama	Masuyama	32	85	20.0	47.0	5
Meade	Series 5000 PWA	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Meade	Mega Wide Angle	21	100	20.0	?	7
Meade	Mega Wide Angle	26	83	21.0	41.0	7
Omegon	Oberon	23	82	20.0	?	?
Omegon	Panorama II	21	100	20.0	?	7
Omegon	Oberon	32	82	27.0	?	?
OpticStar (Opticstar Brand)	XL Ultra Wide Angle	30	82	21.0	43.0	6
Orion	LHD	20	80	20.0	?	8
Skywatcher	Nirvana 82	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Skywatcher	Sky Panorama	23	82	?	?	7
Telescope Service	UWA 82	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Telescope Service	SWA	21	100	20.0	?	7
TeleVue	Nagler4	22	82	19.0	31.1	7
TeleVue	Nagler5	31	82	19.0	42.0	6

[Louis D]

16 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Have you tried all of these:

brand	model	FL	AF	ER	FS	elements
Explore Scientific	82 Series	30	82	21.0	43.0	6
Masuyama	Masuyama	32	85	20.0	47.0	5
Meade	Series 5000 PWA	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Meade	Mega Wide Angle	21	100	20.0	?	7
Meade	Mega Wide Angle	26	83	21.0	41.0	7
Omegon	Oberon	23	82	20.0	?	?
Omegon	Panorama II	21	100	20.0	?	7
Omegon	Oberon	32	82	27.0	?	?
OpticStar (Opticstar Brand)	XL Ultra Wide Angle	30	82	21.0	43.0	6
Orion	LHD	20	80	20.0	?	8
Skywatcher	Nirvana 82	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Skywatcher	Sky Panorama	23	82	?	?	7
Telescope Service	UWA 82	28	82	18.0	38.6	6
Telescope Service	SWA	21	100	20.0	?	7
TeleVue	Nagler4	22	82	19.0	31.1	7
TeleVue	Nagler5	31	82	19.0	42.0	6

I have the original 30mm ES-82 which is just usable with eyeglasses thanks to the eye lens being flush mounted to the top.

I have the 26mm Meade MWA as I mentioned above, and it comes close to being a 25mm Morpheus except for the SAEP and CAEP.

I have the 22mm NT4, and it is also just usable with eyeglasses.  Perhaps I need to try removing the Instajust barrel to see if it is easier.

I haven't tried any of the 28mm UWA versions of the WO 28mm UWA.  None have their eye lens flush mounted nor have a greater than 30mm eye lens like the 30mm ES-82.

All of the 23mm/24mm UWAs have smaller eye lenses than the 30mm ES-82 and are recessed to boot.

I've read that the 31mm NT5 has slightly less usable eye relief than the 30mm ES-82 original due to the eye lens being the same size but not flush mounted.  Given it has CAEP like the ES-82, I'm not likely to go out and buy it any time soon.

The 21mm Meade MWA and similar have SAEP and possibly CAEP and overstated eye relief and AFOV, while not offering anything the 22mm NT4 doesn't already have.

The 32mm Masuyama is insanely expensive for what it is, an insanely sharp in the center, poorly corrected in the outer field UWA.  I am perfectly happy with my Agena version of the 30mm KK WideScan III clone if I want a poorly corrected UWA with a very sharp central region.  If you put a TSFLAT2 in front of it with about 15mm to 25mm more spacing than needed to flatten the curvature of a refractor scope, it flattens out nicely and is actually pretty decently corrected to the edge with very good eye relief for eyeglasses and a usable 80 degree AFOV with no SAEP or CAEP.  The inner 50% is actually sharper than the 30mm ES-82.  As I've repeatedly said, someone should design a compact FF for it.  If the price is under $100, you'll end up with a sub-$200 80 degree eyepiece of very good correction, excellent eye relief, light weight, fairly narrow build, and no nasty SAEP/CAEP.

The 20mm Orion LHD is interesting, but with an eye lens the same size as the 22mm NT4 and 22mm AT AF70 (both of which I have), it's likely to have no better eye relief than either of them.

I'll toss in a wildcard.  I have a 29mm ES-92 of sorts.  It's was originally a factory return 12mm ES-92 and somehow ended up with no lower barrel elements.  I removed the empty middle barrel and replaced it with a series of step rings to reduce require in-focus from 40mm+ to about 20mm.  It has a measured 48.4mm effective field stop (51mm physical FS), 93° AFOV (96° eAFOV), and 17mm of usable eye relief.  It is decently sharp in the inner 20%, gets progressively stronger chromatic aberrations in the next 50% and gets insanely stretched stars in the outer 30%, and yet still looks miles better than the 30mm Kasai Super WideView 90°.  However, if you keep your vision centered and use it to scan around star fields, it is highly addictive.  The fact that it has a wider TFOV than any 2" eyepiece out there with a near hyperwide AFOV and still be usable with eyeglasses speaks volumes to what could be done.  It just needs some chromatic aberration control.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Louis D

[Stu]

On 23/04/2021 at 19:02, Barry-W-Fenner said:

How you getting on with the 12.5mm Stu?! 👍

Looks like this should be delivered tomorrow with any luck! Expect hailstorms and floods 🤣🤣

[Barry-W-Fenner]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Looks like this should be delivered tomorrow with any luck! Expect hailstorms and floods 🤣🤣

Fingers crossed it arrives and you have a clear sky Stu 👍

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Stu said:

Looks like this should be delivered tomorrow with any luck! Expect hailstorms and floods 🤣🤣

Do you guys actually get hailstorms like we do in Texas?  We never hear about it over here.

Our town just got pummeled three weeks ago by baseball sized hail.  Luckily, my house was on the edge of it and only got up to about 20mm hailstones that didn't do much damage other than strip a few leaves off trees.

Here's some images from folks who got it much worse than me.

[John]

Ouch !

We have had quite a few hail showers over the past week but the hailstones were the size of peas, nothing larger. The largest I've seen in the UK would be maybe as large as small grapes.

My wife has a cousin who lives in Australia (Sydney suburbs) and they occasionally get huge hail there - some sones as big as your fist.

 

 

[Louis D]

We get up to softball sized hail (about 4 to 5 inches) on rare occasions in Texas and Oklahoma, though not around here.  They tend to fall closer to between the Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth latitudes.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

We get up to softball sized hail (about 4 to 5 inches) on rare occasions in Texas and Oklahoma, though not around here.  They tend to fall closer to between the Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth latitudes.

Wow! You don’t want to be out in that! Serious risk of getting killed I imagine!

As John says, we get nothing like that over here really, perhaps very occasionally a bit larger than normal. Hopefully even the imminent arrival of my Morpheus won’t change that!

[F15Rules]

I look forward to hearing your impressions of the 12.5mm Morpheus, Stu..in general I really like the 9mm-12.5mm focal lengths in eyepieces, as they can be very versatile if they Barlow well. 

I have just re-acquired a 9mm Morph (should never have sold the original! - how many times have I said that!😂), but haven't yet had a chance to try it properly.. with my 2.25x and 1.6x barlows I can get very useful powers in my frac of 115x, 185x and 260x from the 9mm. With the same barlows, the 17.5mm delivers c60x, 95x and 133x - so 2 EPs can offer 6 very useful magnifications.

Over the past 4 and a bit years I've used or tried the 9, 12.5, 14 and 17.5, and now have the 9 and 17.5, which I feel are the best of the 4 mentioned above.

That said, all 4 are excellent in IMO, and the 14mm, although having some field curvature, still had a good deal less than my Pentax 14mm, and I sold the XW soon after buying the Morpheus. The 12.5mm had less FC to my eyes, and if I didn't already have the Nagler T2 12mm I'd be after one of them too.

I've never used the 4.5 or 6.5mm, but have read good reports of them, especially the 6.5..

I see the key positive features of the Morpheus range as being:

- superbly comfortable and immersive viewing experience 

- Wonderful light transmission

- wide 76 degree (some have measured some variants at up to 79 degrees!) field of view - very noticeably wider than for example the (also excellent) XW range

- (almost) parfocal across the range

- very good edge correction, almost right to the edge in my F8 Tak

- great c20mm eye relief across the range, so suitable for glasses wearers

- lightweight but strong and robust construction

- no undercuts! (The innovative safety kerfs really do work)

- huge eyelens and different eyecup options with the included extender

- excellent for binoviewing

Negatives:

- range stops at 17.5mm!

- now that the early run cheap and nasty eyecups have been vastly improved, I can't think of any other negatives..

Although prices have crept up over the past couple of years, I believe the Morpheus range still offer a great mix of performance and price, hence their current popularity.. I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with the 9mm over the next month or two! 😉👍

Dave

Edited May 8, 2021 by F15Rules
Photo added

[Voyager 3]

17 hours ago, Stu said:

Looks like this should be delivered tomorrow with any luck! Expect hailstorms and floods 🤣🤣

 

11 hours ago, Louis D said:

We get up to softball sized hail (about 4 to 5 inches) on rare occasions in Texas and Oklahoma, though not around here.  They tend to fall closer to between the Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth latitudes.

Should I get into the ark folks ? 😱 😂