Another eyepiece thread (though a slightly different question)

[Pete Presland]

this is a great thread i have only owned a few different makes of eyepiece the standard freebies,meade 4000,orion ed's,a couple of ortho's,and a selection of barlows.

most of these do seem similar in quality and i may add i am more than happy with them!

but i have recently got my first tv plossl and i'm looking forward to trying it.

i dont think i will ever own a nagler ect..but i would love to look through one, it might change my mind

ps how do the hyperions's fair in the competition!

[Moonshane]

Thank you all for the advice. I didn't realise eyepieces were so contentious and we even had a business studies lesson thrown into the mix .

I was not planning on purchasing any additional EP's yet as I want to get used to the scope and using what I have. I was trying to assess though whether I needed to save up longer to buy a more expensive EP or whether I could get a cheaper one. The general consensus seems to be:

- Price does not always equal quality.

- The same eyepiece can be branded differently with a significant differential on price.

- Very expensive EP's will significantly enhance the viewing but if you have never used one of these you won't know that you are missing anything!

- For a fast scope, a good quality EP is recommended.

- Much is down to personal preference which will only be known by trying different EP's out, maybe at a Star Party.

This has given me some good guidance and I will continue to read future threads on the subject to help me when I come to buy another. Thanks again.

I think you hit the nail on the head - eyepiece choice is possibly second only to refractor vs reflector in being the source of many a 'heated debate'!

your logic as above is sound. I would add that if you buy really good eyepieces (like Televue - I am fan as you can see below) and buy them used, you will rarely lose a lot of money if you buy an eyepiece, don't like it for some reason and want to sell on to try something else.

I'd always urge anyone to :

1) buy used from a reliable source like SGL

2) buy the best they can afford at the time

3) initially buy a single really nice eyepiece and see how you go

4) buy more as you can and build a collection or 3 or 4 plus a Barlow / Powermate

5) don't buy loads at once as you make mistakes this way

6) use them and if you don't like them (eg some people don't like the short eye relief of plossls/orthoscopics) sell them on straight away - don't hang onto stuff you won't use.

Personally, I think the short answer to your question is a few expensive ones. I took the view that if you don't buy what you consider the best then you'll always have the nagging doubt of what could have been.

I have actually gone for the 'mid price' TV eyepieces you will note. I got the Radians for maybe £100 each and the Panoptics for £180 and £200. I feel they are well worth the money and I'll keep them 'forever'. They will work in any scope and provide lovely wide angle views. I would 'never' consider the Ethos range just on price alone but you will note that 'forever' and ' never' are in 'girlie quotes' indicating a get-out clause should I ever look through an Ethos and decide that everything must go to fund one!

whatever you do, enjoy your scope and the eyepieces you have until you can afford something which will enhance your view for whatever reason - I can assure you that in my experience, TV eyepieces and those of similar quality will definitely do so but there are a lot of other eyepieces (eg the Nirvanas) which come very close and for some the additional (very) fine tuning of performance up to eg a TV cannot be justified for the additional cost.

[great_bear]

I didn't realise eyepieces were so contentious

Oh, this is nothing compared to the Eyepieces Forum on CloudyNights

I bookmarked what I consider the best summary of eyepiece selection on the above-mentioned forum. It can be read <here>

I also like the quote from jrbarnett, one of the most respected and experienced Eyepiece Forum contributors, who says: "it takes a very good night and lots of clicking of a turret back and forth between eyepieces to pick out differences between the better eyepieces"

[great_bear]

how do filters change things? Will a cheap filter (E.g. Nebula) on a cheap eyepiece provide better views than a higher cost EP on its own?

If you find a "cheap" Nebula filter, I'm sure everyone here would like to know about it!

I think the question's too broad for a simple answer. One example where this might be true is if you use a "minus violet" filter to clean up the image from a fast achromat refractor. In general though, I think you can picture it more easily like audio (I've been in audio / audio software for most of my working life) Q: "Can a cheap equaliser on a cheap amp provide better sound than a high-cost amp?" To which the answer is - yes, but only if it's got a lot of cleaning-up of input signal to do (in such circumstances a top-end amp just shows up how poor the original signal is)

Certainly there's no "Pimp my eyepiece" filter

Do expensive filters make a huge difference over cheaper ones?

I don't know about the really top-end stuff, but I'm really not convinced that my £19 Lumicon coloured filters are that much better than cheaper ones.

I too, would be interested to hear other people's experiences on this front.

[brianb]

how do filters change things?

They don't. Blurred images remain blurred. Filters (used appropriately) will improve the contrast but nothing else. Cheap filters will scatter more light & maybe add some aberrations of their own through not being flat enough.

[Bryndalf]

ok that makes sense. As for "cheap" Nebula filter ive seen a big price range on eBay ranging from £35 to £100+

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I only have the 30mm at the moment which i bought from a fellow SGL member for £20 a couple of weeks ago.

What i like about it is: the sharpness of the stars almost right to the edge of the FOV and the contrast. It really picks up some VERY FAINT stars that i know i have not seen in the same FOV with any of my other EPs before.

The EP only has a 50 degree AFOV...but it feels a LOT bigger/wider.

I would seriously recommend this range of EPs to anyone who has a middle of the road budget.

Even to me (a newbie) the quality of the EP jumps out at you...when compared to the standard EPs supplied with scopes or even those Plossls in the EP kits.

I will be buying the full range over the next year or so. Direct if i have to but would prefer to save a few squid by buying 2nd hand......but there is not much in the difference.

I had a Vixen 36mm Plossl (old series) and the sharpness was fine, eye relief perhaps a tad long, but I could live with it. It is the wide field of the Paragon that I fell in love with.

At short f/l the Plossl design's short eye relief is a pain

[adamsp123]

Another good quality EP IMO for faster optics are the Televue Plossls, tested at F/4 they make a nice reasonably priced choice, S/H about 40 to 50 sobs.

[Ogri]

"At short f/l the Plossl design's short eye relief is a pain "

This is very true for me, though for some people it is fine. The 10mm EP that came with my ST120 is totally unusable for me for example. The 25mm is ok.

In a lot of ways I think the EP debate doesn't really seem to ever mention what's important - the range of magnifications that a specific length EP will give you with your specific 'scope, and then the field of view associated with them. For example for an EP I want to get, what focal length 'scope will give me that 30'ish x mag with a 32mm Panaview (around 960mm f/l), but 'if' the f/l of the 'scope I have is radically different, what other EP can give me the same/similar viewing experience? If I were to have a 1200mm f/l 'scope, obviously I can substitute a 38mm Panaview, for example.

Apart from the higher end magnifications, I think there are two very important magnifications to broadly cover; around 30x, and around 75x. Barlowed x 2, those give 60/150 x mag. Something 'half way' would be nice, but 60 x mag Barlowed is pretty much 'ballpark'.

Around 30 times mag with a cheap erfle 20mm giving a 66 deg fov, gives good views in my 'scope (drop dead gorgeous for terrestrial viewing in daytime). Yes the outer area could be better, but the significant bulk of what I am looking at is very nice.

That said, I'm getting a 21mm Hyperion to augment it for home use, but the 20mm erfle is a keeper for touring with and daytime use for terrestrial viewing. It cost about £29.50 including postage brand new (supposed to be the same EP as the WO 20mm SWA).

I also picked up a 32mm Meade 4000 SP really cheap off that guy on ebay, and that gives nice views at 18.75 x mag, another to take touring with me. Also for touring, I have a 5.2mm ED I bought secondhand off here, which gives 115 x mag. I'll round the touring set off with a cheap 12mm to 15mm at some point, for 40 to 50 x mag.

For home use, I've been picking up secondhand Baader Hyperions, and the fine tuning rings. I have the 8mm and the 13mm, with hopefully the 21 mm on the way soon.

Hyperionw/ 14mm Ring28mm Ring14 + 28 Ringw/ Baader 2" Filter

21mm 17.6 15.5 14.0 18.5

17mm 13.1 10.8 9.2 14.6

13mm 10.8 9.2 8.1 11.7

8mm 6.0 5.0 4.3 6.9

5mm 4.0 3.2 2.6 4.3

3.5mm 2.5 2.1 1.8 2.9

Hyperion Focal Lengths with Finetuning Rings

For my 600mm f5, that gives a magnification range of 28.5 x to 139 x and for me I find the Hyperions Barlow ok, and the Hyperion field of view is more than big enough for me to take in, making a wider field of view a bit of a waste.

I am the first to admit I am not exactly a perfectionist, I'm very happy with the views from a fast achromat, and given my pretty bad eye problems (making optical perfectionism for me a bit of a joke anyway), I'm getting a lot of value out of my gear.

Due to having a welded open pupil, I did suffer pretty badly from getting 'star swamped' - I was getting far too much information into my eyes, masses of white dots on a blanketing background of white dots, which is where filters have come in, and for me they have come in 'big time'.

A polarising filter set was well worth the £20 (I can now look at the Moon, which laid me up with arc eye otherwise).

I think the importance of contrast tends to be badly understated too. So far, I have found the contrast supplied by a Skywatcher LPF to be outstanding for improving the views - I don't get overwhelmed with that star swamping now, and they are excellent value for money with my 120mm 'scope with viewing conditions from poor to good, and the stronger contrast offered by a Castell UHC then takes over when conditions are good to excellent.

Depending on your 'scope aperture, the viewing conditions, what you are looking at, and your eyes, the range of benefits filters offer are from 'you can't see the thing with' (don't forget, not seeing something that is stopping you seeing something else, can have huge advantages too) to 'you can't see the thing without'.

I think the most important thing I have learned recently, is even if you have no light pollution - get a light pollution filter, even if you never get any other filter. The contrast offered is positively delightful.

One of the reasons I was a better than average clay shooter, was I understood how to make use of optimum contrast. I'd use green tinted glasses for bright conditions, and amber tinted glasses for dull conditions.

If you can't see the target, can't pull it out of the background, hitting it can be a bit difficult to say the least.

So to sum up, after me rambling on yet again, work out what EP's you need to give you the magnifications you are looking for, get a nice Barlow (cheap enough secondhand) to cut down on surplus EP's, get yourself something a bit better than run of the mill for a magnification that will be used a heck of a lot (around 30 x mag), and take it from there.

There's some very nice eyepieces out there that give very nice views (TMB Planetary types, etc) that don't cost the Earth, and they even work with f5 'scopes. With patience, save even more, and pick up what you are looking for secondhand. But if you want to treat yourself to an optical treasure at treasure type prices, go ahead and spoil yourself, you're worth it.

Hopefully there's nothing misleading in all that (I'm sure I'll get put right quick enough if there is).

[crazyjedi]

Wow this thread is really developing a life of it's own!!!