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My EP Family

Space Beagle

By Space Beagle
in Members Equipment Gallery

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Space Beagle

Space Beagle

Posted
Posted

My EP family as it stands:

post-17636-133877497121_thumb.jpg

From left to right:

Meade 5000SWA 34mm

TeleVue Panoptic 24mm

BST ED Explorer 18mm

TeleVue Ethos 13mm

TeleVue Nagler T6 9mm

TMB Planetary II 6mm

TMB Planetary clone 4mm

That's it, not chopping and changing any more, ever, never, ever.......honest!:)

Doc

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Bigwings

Bigwings

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Nice line up there Doc :mad:

"That's it, not chopping and changing any more, ever, never, ever.......honest!:rolleyes:"

Absolutely - I totally believe you :D

TV have just released a 50mm with 360 Deg FOV and it sees through clouds :)

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haitch

haitch

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Yes, and it also lets you look at the southern hemisphere sky due to some very cutting edge lenses. :)

I'd buy it if only the exit pupil wasn't too big. :mad:

Doc,

How do you find the TMB, it's clone and the BST stand up alongside your more premium EPs? (Interested as a Meade 5000 SWA & Nagler owner looking to economise to fill some gaps).

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Space Beagle

Space Beagle

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Thanks for all the comments!

Haitch:

I haven't had the BST and the two TMB's very long, but so far I’d say they are all worthy of keeping for quite a while.

The 4mm and 6mm TMBs were bought to replace two SkyWatcher Nirvana's that Simon84 now has. The FL's of the TMBs seem to fit in slightly better with the scopes and other EPs (i.e. the TVs!) I have at the moment. The Nirvanas where very good but both the TMBs are very close to them in sharpness and clarity of view of the Moon and planets, which is what I’m using them on, mostly. The reduced FoV (82 degrees down to 58 degrees) really isn't much of an issue for me on those kinds of targets. I would recommend both the 4mm clone and the 6mm to anyone after 'really good for the money' planetary / lunar EPs. Yes, you do notice the difference when using the 9mm Nagler, but hey, there should be a difference! I really love the 9mm Nagler and normally end up using it on just about any target that I’m looking at in a session, planets, lunar, DSO's and double stars, anything, it’s just so good! Hmmm, thinking about it, all three TeleVue’s I have at the moment are most definitely keepers!!!

The BST 18mm was bought to fill in a bit of a magnification gap between the Panoptic 24mm and the Ethos 13mm when using the Mak 180, and again replaced a Nirvana, the 16mm. Again it seems to do the job rather well and I think it's a keeper for now! It's a very comfortable EP to use with the twist up top of the eyecup - it's a bit like a mini-me version of the Meade 34mm, in a way!! I like its optical quality; it's not embarrassed even compared to, say, the Panoptic 24mm in my collection.

Overall I’m very happy with the swapping out of the more expensive Nirvanas for these three and think I have a more useful line up of EPs for my current scopes, as I don't seem to be missing the Nirvanas at all, and they are, in my opinion, very good EPs too!

Russ:

You where right about the Meade, blimey, what a steal at £149(ish) they are at the moment!! It is simply miles better than the SkyWatcher Panavision 32mm and the Aero 40mm it replaces in my collection and I really liked the Panavision too!! (I simply didn’t use the Aero that much tbh!) The Meade just oozes build quality and it simply stunning, like you said it would be, to look through! It works really well on all my scopes - even though the Tal 100RS seems to say, if it could talk that is, "What the hell is that on my rear end!!??" It's, er, quite rotund, isn't it!?

So, yep, I’m happy with what I’ve got at the moment!

I do like the sound of that new TV that Bigwings mentioned though, I wonder if FLO will be stocking those soon! If it had a 360 degree FoV, does that mean you could actually see behind yourself while looking through it!?.........Cool..!

Doc

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haitch

haitch

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That eyepiece on the left is a real keeper ..... Meade 5K 34mm = stunning!

Yes, lovely EPs the Meade 5000 SWAs. I got hooked when the 20mm ones were coming out of the States for around £50 posted. Since then I've sourced a 16mm & 24mm (but not as cheap) which may make the 20mm obsolete - I'll see what's getting the use over the Winter. The 34mm is on my list to replace my old Series 4000 32mm SWA.

I've got a glaring gap in my EP collection between my 7mm Nag and the 16mm Series 5000 and there's no way I can afford to fill it with TVs at the moment. Not sure how I'd feel about a fov below 60 degrees at that f/l in my dob - with a 1.6m f/l things don't stay in view for long without a nudge.

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haitch

haitch

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hi Haitch

I have 1.6m FL too and the 12.5mm Baader Genuine Ortho is quite superb. T

OK the FOV is a little less than the 13mm Ethos (!!) but the view is sharp and really contrasty, more so than the latter. I'd recommend it highly.

If I'm honest with myself it's probably the Az bearing in my dob that's more annoying than the EPs. It's an old Darkstar 14" f4.5 made in Wales, I think they were, back in the 70s/80s and I think the laminate is a bit worn by now.

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Space Beagle

Space Beagle

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Hi AB,

I've only had the TMB Planetary II 6mm for a couple of weeks and to be fair the seeing has not been great the couple of times I’ve used it in my 200P dob to have a peek at Jupiter and the Moon. But, I like it so far and compared to the Nirvana 7mm it has replaced in my ep set I can't, so far, see any real difference in the quality of view through it! The FoV reduction is not a big issue for me; it's still pretty good at 58 degrees and I could let Jupiter drift across just about the entire field of view without noticing any reduction in sharpness of detail, which I think is good going!

I do like the way the whole eyecup swivels up to adjust eye relief a’la the Meade, very nice!

The build quality seems fine to me, none of the rattles that some people seem to've had!

I guess time and more use will really be what’s required to tell if it becomes a ‘keeper’, but, so far it is living up to its reputation as being very good value for the money!

Doc

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