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Old 03-09-2018, 03:28 PM
morls (Stephen)
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9mm Nagler vs 10mm delos

Hi,

I'm looking for a quality eyepiece that I can use for high magnification in my 180 mak. I currently have an ED 8mm, but at 338x I don't think it will be used a lot of the time.

The 9mm Nagler will give me 300x, which might still be pushing it, while the 10mm delos will give 270x. Most observing is done in suburban Melbourne, with the occasional trip to darker skies.

I'm leaning towards the delos, as I think this will get the most use, but I'd be very interested to know what more experienced members think as well. At this stage I'm only considering televue eyepieces, so would love to hear of others' experiences with these in a 180 mak.

Cheers

Stephen
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Old 03-09-2018, 07:20 PM
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GUS.K (Ivan)
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Hi Stephen, I use Pentax XW 10 and 7mm, as well as a Delos 6mm.I also use TV Delites 11 and 7mm. If you can live with a 60 degree view, the 11mm Delite is great. When seeing allows, the Delos 6mm is exceptional on the moon. I recently got an ES8.8mm 82 degree, also a great eyepiece for Lunar viewing. The Radians are good as well, the 14mm (192x) being the most used EP in my SW180 Mak.
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Old 04-09-2018, 07:12 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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Hi Stephen

I’ve been using Televue eyepieces for 2 years now and have Ethos, Delos and Panoptic which I use in my 10” dob and 6” newt
I sold my 7mm delite when I looked through some high power Delos
My favourite high power eye pieces for lunar and planetary viewing would be my 6mm and 10mm Delos and 8mm Ethos , truly outstanding eye pieces
When viewing permits I bring out my 4.7mm Ethos and 4.5mm Delos
Delites are a superb eye pieces but not in the same league as their bigger brothers
I also have the full range of Powermates which I use to complement my eye piece range and also use for planetary and lunar astrophotography

You pay for what you get with teleview ,I wouldn’t use anything else ,they are lifetime quality investment

Martin
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Old 04-09-2018, 07:34 AM
morls (Stephen)
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Thanks Gus and Startrek,

I also think they're a lifetime investment, and am pretty comfortable with the notion that whether televue, pentax or similar the performance will be top notch. My experience has been with televue, so for now I'll keep building my basic eyepiece set with these. My 35mm panoptic is a wonderful eyepiece. The radians are discontinued aren't they? I'll have to keep a look out for a used one.

I've read interesting comparisons between nagler and delos, most suggesting the delos, being a more recent design, has the edge over the nagler. I'm interested to know whether there is a case for either 300x or 270x being a magnification useful 85% of the time? Is there a generally agreed magnification limit for typical urban conditions?
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Old 04-09-2018, 12:58 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Stephen,
From my experience the night sky is a continuous moving target as far as seeing conditions, it changes from night to night , season to season and location to location but if I had to put a general magnification limit it would be the following -

Suburbs (sa 30 to 40 km from CBD ) 180 x magnification

Regional or Rural town 250 x magnification

Dark site + 300 x magnification

I don’t know if this helps as like I said the seeing conditions are ever changing phenomena. There have been some nights in Sydney where I used a 4.7mm Ethos ( 265 x mag ) and observe Jupiter in excellent detail.

I would recommend buying a powermate ( say 2 x) at some stage to give you some flexibility with your eye piece collection

Good luck !

Martin
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  #6  
Old 24-10-2018, 11:33 AM
Madanie7 (Brendan)
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Sooooo. What did you buy Stephen?
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  #7  
Old 24-10-2018, 12:13 PM
morls (Stephen)
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Well, I haven't made a final decision yet, but I've ordered a 2" Baader BBHS mirror diagonal. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it properly and make sure all parts of the optical chain are the best I can afford to get. The diagonal is around the same price as a Delos, so it's going to take a while to get this paid off. Meantime I'll keep considering options.
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  #8  
Old 24-10-2018, 12:25 PM
Madanie7 (Brendan)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by morls View Post
Well, I haven't made a final decision yet, but I've ordered a 2" Baader BBHS mirror diagonal. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it properly and make sure all parts of the optical chain are the best I can afford to get. The diagonal is around the same price as a Delos, so it's going to take a while to get this paid off. Meantime I'll keep considering options.
Is it purely magnification that's your driving force.
Any design, FOV, eye relief etc coming into it?

Any reason you chose the Baader over Tele Vue?
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Old 24-10-2018, 01:12 PM
morls (Stephen)
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I'm looking for high magnification, neutral colour and good eye relief.



As far as the Baader, I've been checking out reviews and this seemed to rate very highly. I also like the click-lock.


Cheers
Stephen
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  #10  
Old 24-10-2018, 01:12 PM
ab1963 (Andrew)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by morls View Post
Well, I haven't made a final decision yet, but I've ordered a 2" Baader BBHS mirror diagonal. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it properly and make sure all parts of the optical chain are the best I can afford to get. The diagonal is around the same price as a Delos, so it's going to take a while to get this paid off. Meantime I'll keep considering options.
Hi Stephen
Smart move I have this diagonal and is without any doubt in my mind the best mirror diagonal I have ever used ,Coupled with a Tak FS60Q,Nikon Nav 17mm HW the views I’ve had with this configuration are no less than amazing
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Old 24-10-2018, 01:42 PM
Madanie7 (Brendan)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by morls View Post
I'm looking for high magnification, neutral colour and good eye relief.



As far as the Baader, I've been checking out reviews and this seemed to rate very highly. I also like the click-lock.


Cheers
Stephen
Yeh nice. I am thinking either of these two as well as an additional 6mm Delos.
I like the long eye relief of the Delos
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  #12  
Old 24-10-2018, 02:25 PM
morls (Stephen)
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I have this diagonal and is without any doubt in my mind the best mirror diagonal I have ever used

Good to hear of your experience Andrew. Looking forward to getting mine mid-November (ish...)
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  #13  
Old 09-11-2018, 09:40 AM
morls (Stephen)
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The Baader diagonal arrived a few days ago, and it must be fantastic because we've had record hail storms and cloudy nights ever since...
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Old 16-11-2018, 01:49 PM
Madanie7 (Brendan)
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Originally Posted by morls View Post
The Baader diagonal arrived a few days ago, and it must be fantastic because we've had record hail storms and cloudy nights ever since...
That's generally how it goes.
Have you managed to use it yet? Notice a big difference?
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  #15  
Old 16-11-2018, 04:00 PM
morls (Stephen)
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I've used it, and all I can say is that over the last couple of nights I've had AMAZING views of the moon at 330x. I don't know if this is solely because of the Baader, but I do know that before I got it I wasn't able to use this magnification, ever.


I'm not a very experienced observer so it's difficult for me to judge exactly how much difference it's made. All that really matters to me is that the views are AMAZING. First light with the diagonal was a couple of nights ago, trying to track down the three craters Alex put out as a challenge in his beginner's thread. I spent a long time at 330x in the area, and slowly the detail started to appear to me. It was a really amazing experience, and the views blew me away. Like I said above, I've never been able to use this magnification before, but in this session I was staying there and the resolution was top notch at all times.



So, I'm very happy with this purchase
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  #16  
Old 18-11-2018, 09:25 PM
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Having had three of these scopes I can say a lot depends on how good your particular scope really is. The best of the ones I had often handled an 8mm - 340X or 1.8 per mm of aperture quite well.

Mental’s M715D can manage 2.5X per mm, as does my MK91.

This is primarily a function of the quality of your objective (ie the scope), not the eyepiece. For example Dawes recommended 80X per inch of aperture / 3X per mm - which indicates that some of the old refractors used 100 or 200 years ago did indeed have exquisite objectives despite the rather modest eyepieces (Huygens or Ramsdens) and lack of modern coatings.
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Old 19-11-2018, 07:43 AM
morls (Stephen)
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That's interesting Nick. The latest observations with this scope have been encouraging - last night I was again able to use the 8mm on the moon, and I don't think the seeing was particularly good. This is twice in as many sessions after getting the diagonal and tweaking the collimation, whereas before these changes I hadn't been able to use the 8mm at all.
I'm going to keep my options open regarding which focal length Delos I'll get in this range of magnification, and might try some cheaper options at 9, 8 and maybe even 7 (380x) to see what this setup is capable of before putting down the big bucks on a premium.
I've also ordered in a Baader Steeltrack focuser, so I'm slowly getting things lined up to push the optics.
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Old 21-11-2018, 04:45 PM
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Originally Posted by morls View Post
That's interesting Nick. The latest observations with this scope have been encouraging - last night I was again able to use the 8mm on the moon, and I don't think the seeing was particularly good. This is twice in as many sessions after getting the diagonal and tweaking the collimation, whereas before these changes I hadn't been able to use the 8mm at all.
I'm going to keep my options open regarding which focal length Delos I'll get in this range of magnification, and might try some cheaper options at 9, 8 and maybe even 7 (380x) to see what this setup is capable of before putting down the big bucks on a premium.
I've also ordered in a Baader Steeltrack focuser, so I'm slowly getting things lined up to push the optics.
Why add the rear mounted focuser? Adding the length on the back end will increase the focal length of the scope and narrow the true field of each eyepiece. That is an add-on oriented to the astrophotographer who needs to make sure the image doesn't move when focusing, but that's not important for visual use. I would have spent the money on eyepieces.
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Old 21-11-2018, 05:48 PM
morls (Stephen)
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Why add the rear mounted focuser?
Hi Don, the main reason is because I want to have finer control than I can get with the internal focuser, and the elimination of mirror shift will be a bonus as well.
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Old 22-11-2018, 12:30 AM
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Hi Don, the main reason is because I want to have finer control than I can get with the internal focuser, and the elimination of mirror shift will be a bonus as well.
Then replace the focuser with a Starlight Instruments 2-speed focuser replacement or add the JMI 2-speed add on. Both of those give you very fine control without adding focal length to the scope.
For every 10mm of additional rear length you add, you add 31mm to the focal length of the scope. You'll end up with an even longer focal ratio than the long f/ratio the scope already has.
Your scope already has a narrow field of view; you probably don't want to make it even narrower.
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