High-End vs Seeing

[cpsTN]

I've never had very high-end eyepieces. The most I've had was maybe $150 at the most, lines like that and under. Anyway, should high-end and moderately high-end eyepieces always show their superior quality views in all conditions or just under good seeing conditions?

I ask this because my new 9 mm Vixen SLV is still not shining very well, really hardly any difference at all except for the brightness of the field and the lack of kidney beaning. This is with comparing it to an Svbony Redline 9mm, by themselves and with 2x and 3x barlows in a Celestron Omni 150, 6" f/5 Newt. 

[Stu]

Seeing is a great leveller, and can make great kit look very bad when it is poor. Good kit cannot overcome poor seeing.

How are you trying to assess the differences? What targets are you looking at? Are you comparing stars towards the edge of the field? Close double stars, perhaps difficult lunar features?

[John]

Sub-$150 eyepieces can be very high performers (eg: Baader 10mm and 18mm classic orthos) although the mediocre seeing conditions and sky transparency will certainly blunt their edge.

A few years ago I was comparing one of the very best planetary eyepieces around, a 5mm TMB Supermonocentric with a University Optics HD 5mm orthoscopic over a few weeks and found that the only differences that I could see in the planetary (Jupiter and Saturn) views were very subtle and only visible on the nights of best seeing, which here are perhaps 10% of the time, maybe ?

At that time the TMB Supermonocentric retailed for around 4x as much as the UO ortho did.

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @cpsTN and welcome to SGL. 

It depends on what targets you are observing and local sky conditions. At the time of writing, the planets are all extremely low in the evening sky here in GB/UK 🇬🇧 and you are looking through a denser/thicker and polluted atmosphere and this causes a dramatic effect on seeing and what you are viewing through the e/p.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Philip R

[AstroKeith]

4 hours ago, cpsTN said:

I've never had very high-end eyepieces. The most I've had was maybe $150 at the most, lines like that and under. Anyway, should high-end and moderately high-end eyepieces always show their superior quality views in all conditions or just under good seeing conditions?

I ask this because my new 9 mm Vixen SLV is still not shining very well, really hardly any difference at all except for the brightness of the field and the lack of kidney beaning. This is with comparing it to an Svbony Redline 9mm, by themselves and with 2x and 3x barlows in a Celestron Omni 150, 6" f/5 Newt. 

As others have said, 'poor seeing' is a great leveller!

At f5 your scope needs to be quite well collimated. Less than perfect collimation will have quite a big effect. Also at f5 you need to stick to 'better' EPs.

The Barlows may also be at least in part levelling any difference between the two 9mm EPs.

[Mr Spock]

I believe I mentioned collimation in your other thread. At f5 it only needs to be slightly out for the image to be ‘ordinary’. 
I think many people use scopes not fully collimated and don’t realise their full potential. 

[cpsTN]

To answer the prevailing questions, I've been using the moon and looking at very subtle detail to see if I could see any differences and I'm seeing only a definite eye brightening up the field obviously because of better light transmission and a lack of kidney beaning which isn't present in the SLV. I'm also using open star clusters and general starfields to see the sharpness of the stars towards the darkness of the field and the sharpness of the stars at the edge. I'm not seeing really any difference there either but we've had a lot of storms here lately and the atmosphere hasn't been exactly gung ho. If place has had decent eye relief so I didn't have to screw them in my eyeball and Below 12mm focal length I would I would be happy with those. Same with Orthos. I know that I really shouldn't be using an F5 scope for planetary but especially in the six inch and a quarter but many people use much larger aperture Scopes and they tend to be f/5 range if they re Newts. I'm also not using a coma corrector and I'm looking into one of those but there are tons of those to and I probably should be using one of those but I haven't decided online yet. Anyone have a 180mm Mak in their pocket they re not using right now? 😁😁😁

[Louis D]

Here's another test of the two eyepieces.  Move the moon and/or a bright planet or star just outside the field of view.  Which does a better job of suppressing stray light not in the field of view?  Of course, if your scope's tube isn't well baffled/flocked, any eyepiece differences may be drowned out by it.

[Guest]

I have had the opportunity to compare my Orion eyepieces to TV in two different scopes.  Once was my 10 inch skyline dob and the other was a Teeter that cost about 10 grand.  In both scopes there was no question that the TV eyepieces we're definitely better glass.  The Orion eyepieces definitely did better in the more expensive scope.  The question for me was do I buy eyepieces that cost as much if not more then the scope.  For me that is a no.  While the Skyline does pretty good with the eyepieces I have, it isn't really a good enough scope to take full advantage of eyepeices in that price range.  

[Don Pensack]

One thing to know is that the difference between an inexpensive eyepiece and an expensive eyepiece, on axis, doesn't amount to much.

Any difference there will be related to seeing more than the eyepiece.

But that does not mean there are no differences.

You should review this, because it will give you a lot of things to look at to compare eyepieces.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/795988-how-to-evaluate-or-compare-eyepieces/?p=11463451

One simple rule is this:

Well corrected to the edge of the field in short f/ratio scopes......Wide to ultrawide field.....Inexpensive:  Pick any two.

[cpsTN]

With clearer skies last night and the Moon quite high in the sky, I was able to see that the 9 SLV was a little sharper and definately brighter than the 9 Redline, but not only that, the overall view was more consistent and uniform and noticeably more comfortable to view. The narrower FOV of the Vixen SLV, 50* vs 68*, made the field less distracting too.  The SLV handled the seeing better and the Redline, compared to the SLV, seemed like I was looking though a teary eye, with a ring of light and dark around the edge, not to mention the kidney beaning of the Redline. The detail available was not always noticeable, but the SLV is definately a better qlality eyepiece. Just for the hell of it, I am going to be get a 10mm ES52 and compare that to the SLV and see which one comes out better.  Then I will know in which of those two lines (Vixen SLV or Explore Scientific ES52), to make further eyepiece upgrades. I am sure if I upgrade my barlows that would be a noticeable improvement too, replacing my Orion 2x shorty and 3x Trimag with TV 2x and 3x. 

[Highburymark]

Sounds like you did a pretty good job of distinguishing the improvements offered by the SLV. As everyone has said, the on-axis differences can be slim or non existent between eyepieces, but other aspects like comfort are just as important. If an eyepiece feels right ergonomically, you know you can relax and concentrate on looking at the night sky - particularly important for short sessions when you don’t want to be fussing over kit.