is televue worth it

[sasup]

Hello are the televue eye pieces worth the cash or is there others as good? I mean $700 for an eye piece seems alot. My 12 inch lightbridge was only $1,300 Thanks

[gbeal]

Only you can ascertain that.
Another comparison is focusers.
In my case Feather Touch, and they are similar in price to what you are suggesting.
Sidle up to someone at the next star party and compare your eyepieces with the "Televues" (and others). That may help put the question into perspective.
Gary

[wavelandscott]

As Gary is suggesting, only you can decide "if they are worth it".

Don't confuse the question of worth with the question of are they technically different (or technically superior)...

Televue and a few others are in a different category of technical specification and execution, these are things that can be measured and "rated"...

Is an Apple Computer "worth" that much more than a Windows based PC?

[casstony]

Spend less by buying used Televue Naglers. Gear seems to be selling slowly lately so it's a buyers market. One advantage of Televue is you can get their eyepieces repaired, so if the eyelens coating is damaged the eyepiece isn't a throw-away; the repair still probably costs about 1/3 the price of a new eyepiece though by the time you add postage.

[Miaplacidus]

Yeah, I effectively rent my high end eyepieces, because buying second hand lets me sell them later without much loss. But cheap eyepieces just won't find a secondary market. (It's probably much the same with telescopes.)

Cheers,

Brian.

[Paul Haese]

Televue make very good EP's. Their quality is superb and as a general rule they are better than most EP's on the market.

However, everything is all relative to your needs. You have to ask yourself whether you really need this EP or that EP. For my money I like TV EP's any day of the week.

Buy second hand if you can. That way you get a good bargain and a great EP.

[sasup]

Ahh this is what I ment. Because it is hard to judge what one has not seen, as in I dont know anyone with a televue and as such I have no flat line on witch to judge a GSO eyepeice to televue. So an updated question is what is it I should hope for in a high end eye peice over say gso or meade? Thank you for your comments

[Coen]

Another aspect is it depends on your needs and wants.

Not specific to TV or any particular brand but:

If you do not need wide field views that are as close to perfect through to the edge in your fast focal length (say <f8 or so) scope then the humble Plossl and Ortho maybe sufficient. Longer focal length scopes are very forgiving of eyepieces. If you want perfection and 120 degree views (slight exaggeration) in your f3.5 scope then you need to be prepared to pay for it.

Another guideline is that "telescopes come and go, but eyepieces last" i.e. quality eyepieces stay with you through your inevitable up-sizing and down-sizing of telescopes.

Do some searches with the internet, look here and Cloudy Nights for reviews, recognise that bias can be present (who wants to be told their eyepiece worth $100s is no better than a $50 Plossl under certain parameters). Acknowledge what you plan to use the eyepiece for and as has been said see if you can look through one before you buy (not always easy).

[sasup]

good stuff I will do some more reserch

[barx1963]

Is TV worth it. Ihave a Nagler 13mm T6 and a 24mm Pan, both $300+ eps, and the answer very simply is YES! (IMHO)

[wasyoungonce]

I suspect that good eyepieces are kept for longer that you have a scope.

But...that said. I also suspect that after a few scopes you settle on one that may not suit your eyepieces.

For example my TV plossl range are great for my C8 but...not so good a my ED80 due to magnification, eye relief etc.

On that note...there is no way I'd part with them...unless I purchased naglers! :rofl:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

I wound up with a bunch of TVs by process of elimination. The Naglers and Panoptics just seem to out-perform every other EP in their ranges. I don't like the Radians because of the fussy eye position & colour and the Ethos gave me neck-ache craning around to get the full view as well as sending my Dob tilting over.
If I was to start with one TV EP it would be the 13 or 16mm Nagler. Not as pricey as others and views you can stare at all night.

[barx1963]

Sasup
As Peter said, the 13mm Nag is a cracker in a 12", so will definately be worth in your LB.

[Miaplacidus]

Well, all these panegyrics are wonderful, and I like my 24 Panoptic (best eyepiece ever, I suspect), but it is important to remember a few things. Not all eyepieces, or all Naglers for that matter, suit all users. A lot of people find some TV EPs quite unfriendly because of this thing called "black-beaning", where you get black holes in the field of view if you don't get your eye placement "just right". My T4 12mm suffers from this, and I prefer the Pentax 10 XW in most situations. (I don't find a noticeable difference betwixt the 82 degree true FOV of the Nagler and the 70 degree true FOV of the Pentax.) And eye relief is a consideration, too. It's always better to try before you buy.

[wavelandscott]

My normal recommendation is for people to use the eyepieces that come with the scope for a while until you get a feel for how often you are actually going to use the scope and also learn what you want to look at.

Eyepiece design is really about the designer finding the right compromise to meet a desired outcome...just a fancy way of saying no eyepiece is perfect!

Do remember that an outcome for design can be a "price point"...others could be eye relief, wide field of view etc. etc.

There are "good" eyepieces available in many different price points...every single one of them (even the cheapies) is vastly superior to what Gallileo and his peers would have used so don't for a moment get drawn into the idea that you must have expensive gear to view.

Having said that, if you are like many folks, as your experience level and bank account allow you will likely migrate to the higher end of the eyepiece food chain. Eyepieces if cared for can last a life time and expereinced viewers can "see" the difference in quality in the view.

The views you get are ultimately limited by the weakest link in your optical train. High end eyepieces tend to hold their value better than lessor ones as there are nearly always a ready market of folks looking to trade up.

Now for my opinion...setting aside the really cheap stuff, I think you will find that mid-range eyepieces can acheive 90-95% of the "quality" of the high end gear (my estimate with no scientific backing)...the last 5-10% of performance is what makes them expensive.

I strongly encourage you to use what you have first and then try and get together with others in your area and have look through their gear and do some comparing and contrasting. Some of the retailers (depending on where you live) will be happy to give you a look through an eyepiece in their shop...

Clear Skies

[GrampianStars]

SASUP
IMO NO! BS :rolleyes:
4 your LB $700 will get you 2 or three of quality eyepieces
try Vixen Lanthanum, Baader Hyperion, Orion Stratus, :thumbsup:

[mark3d]

With any hobby there are those who seek the 'best' and spend a lot of money. I think its about 'best value' - finding the optimum point on the price/value graph.

A newbie probably couldn't tell much difference between a $100 and $1000 SLR camera lens, but a pro would spot it in an instant. That doesn't mean the $100 lens won't take some great photos.

Any technology is a case of diminishing returns, you need to keep spending a lot more to get a little better.

I mention the following because it might interest you as a dob owner, as I was facing the same dilemma. I just couldn't stretch the budget to premium eyepieces, so I bought the eyepieces in my signature, for a total of around $400 (the Vixen was 2nd hand and obviously the Meade 26mm came with the scope). Those combinations gives me a fair range - from 50x to 400x. The 17mm is great for general views, while the 6mm has shown me mars ice caps, jupiters bands and saturns rings. I want to finish off with a GSO superview 30mm, probably still keeping the total under that of a premium EP.

.

[davewaldo]

I thought I'd chime in here... I find my Meade 14mm s4000 UWA is a wonderful EP. If you hunt around they can be found relatively cheap and give views as good as the earlier naglers.
This is the best EP ever made by Meade, don't mistake it for their current line up of s4000 or 5000 EPs which are rubbish, this EP is Japanese made and when released was considered by many reviewers to be better than the Nagler of the day. I believe Meade stopped making it as it was too expensive to manufacture (because of the precision they were achieving).

Its a heavy EP which is its main downside, but for the price it can't be beat. I love mine! If you're money can't stretch to newer naglers this is the EP to have.

Here is one on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Meade-Series-4000-UWA-14mm-Eyepiece-for-Telescope_W0QQitemZ170459835892QQcm dZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?h ash=item27b032adf4#ht_500wt_1182

[sasup]

I have just bought four eye peices A neg 17mm, 25mm and two Baader Hyperion 24mm 17mm plant for the bloke down the street. I will check these out and see how they work and start to get an idea about what feels good. Keep the info comming as its all good stuff and there is so much to learn

[DavidU]

Let us know what you think of them.:thumbsup:

[tnott]

Something else to consider - the type of telescope affects the type of eyepiece that will work best.

Cheap and even mid-priced widefield eypieces give distorted views at the edge of the field in fast scopes like F5 and below dobs (astigmatism). In a F10 SCT though, they usually work quite well.

Narrower field eyepieces like regular plossls are OK in both, but in a manual dob you'll have to nudge objects into the field more often.

Certain eyepiece designs (like Naglers and Ethos) are specifically made to handle the steeper cone of light at fast focal ratios and give a much sharper view across the field of view. So this is why you often see users of short-focus dobs with these expensive designs sometimes worth even more than the original telescope!

Other things like eye-relief, field curvature, etc. are important for viewing comfort and vary from person to person too. So best to try before you buy....

[bobson]

In my opinion since you have a Dob its better for you to get Pentax or Naglers because of 70 and 82 degree FOV. Unless you are happy to nudge your Dob all the time to keep the object in the center of view. In my Pentax XW 10 mm it takes 40 seconds for Jupiter to go from edge to edge, and its clear all the way. For motorised telescopes this is not an issue cos it keeps object in the center all the time.

Nothing worse if you are showing someone who doesn't know how to nudge the Dob in high powers and before they even put their eye on the eyepiece the object is already gone :(

cheers

[ericwbenson]

Here is another data point for you to consider if you're serious about astronomy:
My first eyepiece set was a 25mm Kellner, 9mm orthoscopic and 32mm 2" Erfle (after I upgraded the focuser on my Odyssey 8 dob). Fine to begin with by I immediately needed more FOV at high power, more eyerelief from the ortho. So...
Second set was 16mm, 12mm, and 8 mm Konig, and kept the 32 Erfle. Used this for a few years did a lot of observing, with my 2nd scope (a 16" dob by then) and learned the sky really well. By then I also knew I wanted better corrected and wider views, so I splurged on:
35mm Panoptic, 20mm Nagler type 2 (aka the grenade), 12mm Nagler (1.25/2" barrel) and 7mm Nagler. The focal lengths are spaced by a factor of 1.7 which was the square root of my 2.8x barlow at the time, making a nice progression as I zoomed in on an object. Planning a set like this really pays off no matter what the scope they go into, they all get used equally.

I spent I think ~1600$ at the time, never for an instant have I regretted it, I have used them for nearly 20 years and probably could get a third of my money back, so 50$ per year for fabulous wide field views? what a bargain. I fact I think I'll go outside and look thru them some more tonight! Good eyepieces last a long time.

Good luck,
EB