Compare these two eyepiece brands.

[Doc]

Recently I've started observing the Moon and the plan is when lunar's about I do my Lunar 100 and when it's not I do my Messier/Herschel lists.

Now the contrast and sharpness I get from my Telescope House Orthoscopics is really good but I was wondering if you had the chance what would you choose from these two and why...

Telescope House Orthoscopics verses Baader Orthoscopics.

I know the Baaders cost slightly more but are they worth it?

[John]

Tom Trusock did a comparison of the UO classic and UO HD orthos - very, very similar eyepieces I reckon:

http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/orthos.pdf

I reckon it's so close it's almost down to whether you prefer the egonomics of the flat V's volcano tops though the Baaders do have the Phantom coatings.

[Doc]

And how much of a difference do this phantom coatings make I wonder. I quite like the volcano design I find it's really comfortable to observe with. I have already seen this report John and it makes imformative reading.

[argonaut]

Having a set of BGO's, Circle-T Orthoscopics and Brandons I can only sort of give you a percentage.

Brandon 100%

BGO 95%

Circle-T 93%

I'm not saying that anyone can see 5% difference,it's just a rating system I use.

The Brandons and Circle-T are single coated,with the BGO's being multi (Phanton) coated.

Glen.

[Doc]

I never even thought about Brandon's how do they comapre in price to the BGO's?

It's a shame they don't make BGO's with volcano tops.

[Doc]

OUCH I think Brandons are slightly out of my price range

[argonaut]

The Brandons are seriously expensive for a Orthoscopic eyepiece. I just treated myself a couple of years ago.

I do like volcano tops,they do help with eye position when I use the shorter focal lengths. Many people grumble about the narrow FOV but why have a wide FOV for planets? Also the eye relief is usually .8mm x per mm of focal length. I know that some Plossls are .7mm per mm of focal length.

Glen.

[John]

I'd be very interested to know what differences you see between your UWAN 7mm and the Ortho equivilent. When I recently compared a Baader GO 7mm with a Nagler T6 7mm I could see no appreciable difference in the sharpness and contrast delivered.

A couple of years ago I decided that I had better build up a set of Ortho's to work alongside my Naglers as I'd convinced myself that the complex designs could not compete when it came to planetary contast and sharpness. I quite quickly built up a set of flat top Antares orthos (including an HD which looks identical to the University HD ortho) and classic volcano tops ranging from 4mm to 18mm. Over the next couple of months I used these and carefully compared them with their Nagler equivilents. After a while I had to concede that the Nagler T6's were every bit as good to my eyes and provided extra eye relief and nearly twice the FoV (a real boon with my undriven scopes). So I sold the orthos.

As they say though YMMV

[Doc]

The Ortho's are brighter then my 4 and 7 mm Uwans, which in turn makes details stand out a little better. Totally agree about the eye relief and fov are much better in the Uwans but I still say that a good set of Ortho's are needed for lunar, planetary and double star work.

[great_bear]

Certainly I found that the eye relief on the BGOs are better than (in my case GSO) Plossls. When I bought the 6mm BGO I was expecting to have a hard time with it - but much to my surprise it's absolutely fine and has a crisp field-edge.

When comparing eyepieces, I'm surprised people don't put more weight on focal length. It seems to me that at long focal lengths, the differences between eyepieces are more cosmetic and ergonomic than they are optical - whereas at the short end, optical differences become more pronounced.

In terms of differences between the BGO 18mm and Circle-T 18mm, I'd say that optically there's probably nothing in it at all. To me there seemed to be less usable eye relief on the BGO 18mm because the lenses are set deeper down in the barrel - not that either was short of it at 18mm f/l

At 9mm and shorter there may be more larger differences between the two - not only because of different coatings but because the baffling is different and may be more critical too - but that's just a guess since I've not compared them (although owned the 12.5mm BGO briefly).

I sold both my 18mm BGO and my 12.5mm BGO since - although I was very fond of them, in my F15 Mak I could see absolutely no optical difference between them and the ol' GSO plossls at those f/l's - at 6mm however - well, the difference is enormous.

If you do buy a 9mm BGO and decide not to keep it, let me know - I'm looking for one at the moment

[Moonshane]

I am really interested in this thread as I have robbed Mick's idea of doing Luna work when it's out and doing the Luna 100. I got through about the first 25 (with a few missing that were in the shade of course!) last night. I really noticed that the image was far better once it had gone darker which surprised me as I assumed it would be good also when the moon was still slightly 'blue'.

anyway, back on topic. I bought a cheapo (£9) Vixen Circle V and it's displaying a weird circular purple bloom on the lenses so it may be for the bin. I really like my Radians as they are very sharp but given what Mick says, I should maybe consider a 12.5mm ortho next rather than a 12mm Radian as this in conjunction with my 2.5x powermate will only be used for planets, moon and tight doubles.

my quandry is that a used Radian is only about £25 more than a new BGO.

[argonaut]

I suppose it's a little bit like comparing apples and oranges when looking at a 3 or 4 element Ortho and a 7 element UWAN. Coating technology is really moving on these days. The newer coatings do help with some of the light loss that multi-element lenses USED to impart on the image. The 'more glass,less light' arguement is diminishing.

To my eyes,which are getting on a bit now,the view through the UWAN is slightly 'warmer' than my Orthoscopic. Sometimes the view is a little 'softer' through the UWAN.I do like my UWAN's and would never sell them. Meaning....they are more comfortable to use.The crisp and clean views of the Ortho's are worth a little bit of discomfort from time to time,for me anyway.

The BGO coatings are excellent and do reduce 'light scatter'.I noticed this when viewing Saturn the other night. If people don't use Ortho's alot,I doubt if it would be noticed.

I've not looked through a Ethos,but I could not get on with Naglers.

Glen.

[argonaut]

I just edited my last post to show that certain Orthoscopics do actually have 4 elements. Whether this this makes them a 'true' Orthoscopic,I wouldn't know.

Sorry for the slip.

Glen.

[pvaz]

Well since I got my Ethos and bigbarlow my baader orthos are almost unused.

If there's a diference I honestly can't see it, specially when I compare the 9mm ortho to the ethos. Maybe the 5mm ortho haves a slightly better contrast then the ethos + barlow, sometimes I compare them and think that's the case, 5 min after I switch them around again and they seam the same. I honestly don't know.

I'm keeping them all, but I can't really say, from all this combinations, which I like the most. I'm just happy the large investment on the Ethos seams to have an array of uses when combined with the barlows which makes up for not buying a hole set of EPs instead.

The orthos sure are great, but having to nudge the scope much more often and then wait a second for the image to stabilize again seams to make me notice less detail. The wide FoV allows me to let the object drift from edge to edge and I can appreciate it for longer time between each nudge and that helps noticing detail.

PS-> Sorry for not answering directly to the question, but the only orthos I ever peeked through are the baaders so I compared the 3 EPs I use for planetary instead.

[great_bear]

Yeah - I think that when it gets to a stage where eyepiece differences are smaller than the second-by-second changes in the view, it's time to stop comparing and start enjoying the view...

[johninderby]

While I found that the BGOs were very good indeed, I use the Naglers (2.5mm, 3.5mm and 5mm) instead for high power viewing. The BGOs do have the very slightest edge in sharpness and contrast, but the difference is so small that the other advantages of the Naglers win out for me.

Now my 6mm Ethos is another step better again than either the Naglers or BGOs, and when the 3.7mm Ethos SX is released later this year it will be replacing the 3.5mm and 5mm Naglers. The best way I can describe the difference between the Ethos and the Naglers is that while observing the crater Plato a little while ago, the craterlets that were seen in the Naglers became well defined craters with the Ethos.

However I have to agree that the BGOs are a great buy and you can't go wrong with them if you're looking for eyepieces in that price range.

John

[Moonshane]

right, my mind's made up on this. it's another Radian for me.

although of course I'd love an Ethos, I could not spend that much on an eyepiece.

my main reason for the above comment is that the wider view of the Radian is so much more comfortable than even the 12.5mm ortho I tried recently.

hope you make your mind up too Mick!

[great_bear]

right, my mind's made up on this. it's another Radian for me.

Over on CloudyNights, I notice there's a lot of comments suggesting Radians aren't all they're cracked up to be - I've seen enough bad comments to put me off ever buying one...

[Moonshane]

fair enough, I've not compared them to much else but I really like them. they give wide views (or at least wide enough for me), great eye relief and are very sharp all the way across the field.

anyhow, we'd better watch out or the thread police will be after us ;0)

[great_bear]

The BGO coatings are excellent and do reduce 'light scatter'.I noticed this when viewing Saturn the other night. If people don't use Ortho's alot,I doubt if it would be noticed.

Do you feel there is less scatter in the BGOs than the Brandons?