[gregbradley]

I hadn't done any real visual for many years but did when I first got into astrophotography and telescopes.

So in a way despite being in the game a long time I am a newbie myself when it comes to eyepieces.

So I have done a lot of research myself lately and bought a lot of eyepieces so I might be able to give some insight.

This is the list of my current eyepieces:

3.5 type 6, 9 type 1and 16mm type 6 Televue Nagler:

Roughly 84 degree field
The classic Televue space walk. Still marvellous eyepieces and hard to fault. The 9mm Type 1 has a lousy rubber eyecup but that is replaceable. The 3.5 is good for planets and high mag view, the 16mm is quite a wide view, very small and compact and a wonderful view. Quite close to teh 17.5mm Morpheus but prefer the Morpheus.

9, 12.5 and 17.5 Baader Morpheus 76 degree field - the best eyepieces I have.

10mm Masuyama 85 degree field. Love this eyepiece, wonderful views not as good in the corners though, remarkably small for an 85degree eyepiece - a keeper.
APM 30 UFF wide field
SvBony 8-24mm zoom, 60-40 degree field at the
Edmunds Optics 7.5, 15 and 28mm RKE. Very sharp and detailed, good light transmission, FOV a bit narrow for me although the 28 seems quite wide.
Televue 32mm Plossl great for widefield views and for finding objects.
Meade Super wide angle 12.5mm this was my favourite eyepiece from my early days.
TMB Planetary 11 7.5mm 58 degree field. First light last night - wow, love it 58 degree FOV in an ortho type design. Very little false colour and very sharp, great for the moon. This is a $53 eyepiece, incredible value!
various Meade Plossls from their kit.
University Optics Ortho 4.6mm and 12mm
15 and 25mm Dual ED $85 each, good value,a solid 2nd tier eyepiece

In the past I have had several 19mm Panoptics,22mm Nagler, 9mm Type 6
, a Televue Radian 35mm Panoptic and TMB Planetary monocentric. Also a 13mm Televue Ethos - a stunning eyepiece but huge, heavy and the cost of a small scope!

I have a few more on the way as well.

I am using high end refractors - AstroPhysics 130GT F6.3 (819mm focal length) and CFF105mm F6 (630mm focal length). You are at 900mm so the AP130 is very similar.

My favourite eyepiece out of all of those is the Morpheus 17.5mm.
The best bang for your buck is the TMB planetary 11. These are like $53 on Ebay,are well made and showed the least false colour on the limb of the moon of any eyepiece in the above list.

The Naglers are 2nd and are always a pleasant and sharp view.

What i have noticed since getting back into visual is there is more evaluation of an eyepiece on its eye relief. Eye relief is how far above the eyepiece can you see. The Morpheus has very good eye relief, you don't experience blackouts easily like some do. Stars are colourful pinpoints. Very little flaring which is a negative quality I have noticed in some eyepieces.

A 17.5mm Morpheus and a barlow would cover a lot of ground. You can take in the whole field very easily and comfortably. Its very sharp and contrasty. I prefer it over the 16mm Nagler Type 6 which is a well known and excellent eyepiece and so is mine, its just the Morpheus is noticeably better (more immersive).

The SvBony zoom is good value as well. The zoom goes out of focus as you zoom though. But for $125 on Ebay its a good deal.

So from my experiences above I concluded for me:

1. I don't enjoy these Ortho 40 degree fields of view. 58 - 60mm is the starting point and 76 degrees of the Morpheus seems plenty. The Nagler has more FOV but to my experience it feels much the same, perhaps because its a more immersive view. I also prefer the eyecup and ergonomics of the Morpheus which comes with 2 types of eyecups, a screw on to cap and usual bottom cap. It comes with a nice belt pouch with a metal clip you can set up so you can feel which focal length eyepiece it is.

The market has moved on. It used to be anything Televue was best. Not any more. Its way more competitive and there are lots of choices and probably few bum ones. Televue products are still top tier though.

I would get in touch with Don here on the eyepiece forum from eyepiecesetc.com he is a great source of information and is very helpful.

So my recommendation:
17.5mm Baader Morpheus $390 Astrodog or Don
7.5mm TMB Planetary ii. $53 Ebay

You've already got a Paracorr and barlow.

Greg.