TeleVue Plossls vs Orthoscopics

[A McEwan]

There's an interesting thread on CN at the moment extoling the virtues of the older smoothside TeleVue Plossls, some of which I had in the past. It seems they are quite the top of the pile in Plossl performance. I have asked how they compare with various "mainstream" brands of Orthoscopic, but have not had any response yet (Topic-killer, that's me!) so am passing the question over here too. Has anyone compared the older smoothies with current ranges of Orthoscopics (BGO, Antares, UO, UO HD etc) and if so, how did they compare?

Thanks,

Ant

[Merlin66]

Because I bought them a few years ago all my main eyepieces are now TV plossls - smooth side originals.

I don't know about the current Orthos, but the eyepieces the TV's replaced were the UO orthos which I'd used for five or six years doing visual Super Nova searching.

I had a 12" f5 with great optics. The change to the TV's gave me additional magnitude - probably about 0.2 mag ( 15.5mag limit) and the field of view was much flatter and clearer towards the edges...made my searching so much easier.

Now, 20 odd years later I see no reason to change them.

Just my 2c

[A McEwan]

Interesting, thanks Merlin!

Ant

[brianb]

I much prefer the Baader Genuine Orthos to Televue Plossls - more contrast & less warm toned. You can't say a word even mildly critical against Televue on CN without getting howled down & some of the products they sell are class leaders, but not the Plossls which are rather "ordinary" IMO.

[AndyH]

On CN, this thread would now be locked and undergoing moderation .......snigger.

I always prefered the 'build' of the original smooth side TV plossls. And none of those damned undercuts....grrr. Optics? Never really spent much time with them to form an opinion either way.

Under 10mm Fl, I have always liked orthos, be they volcano or flat topped.

My tuppence worth.

Cheers,

Andy.

ps: My scopes are all 'slow'

[dweller25]

I have smoothside and current TV Plossls plus 25 year old Celestron Plossls and they all perform the same. I also have Volcano top orthos and BGO's and there is nothing to choose between them. The Plossls and Orthos are all much the same - all are good.

[John]

I've owned a set of "smoothside" TV plossls then a set of the current design. I could detect no differences in sharpness or contrast but I thought the light transmission of the later designs was slightly better. I put this down to more modern coating technology. The differences were pretty slight though.

Although I've also owned Baader GO's and currently some University classic orthos I did not have the opportunity to try them "back to back" with the TV plossls.

I tend to agree with David (dweller25) that they all perform pretty uniformly really - all very good to use

[sixela]

My observations are consistent with most posters' experiences. TV Plössls in general are slightly better than standard UO or Kasai orthos, but Baader Genuine Orthos and UO HD's seem to have a tiny edge (except, surprisingly, when observing Jupiter). And of course Zeiss and Pentax orthos beat even these. It's all very close, though, except perhaps for the Zeiss.