My new wide-view Orion Stratus eyepieces are here!

[janoskiss]

My Orion Stratus 68-degree eyepieces have just arrived! :jump2:
5, 8, 13, and 21mm. They are about the same size as the 30mm GSO superview, but these babies are full of glass from top to bottom.

I did a quick check of the AFOV against the 19mm Panoptic and the 30mm Superview. The Status have the same AFOV as the Pan (wider than the SV). They are very nice on eye placement. I haven't actually looked at anything through a scope with them yet though.

I've attached a couple of pics with three of them on display alongside my 30mm GSO Superview, 19mm Panoptic and 13mm Nagler.

It cost me just under $AU700 for the four, about $175 each, including postage from the states. They got here in six days as promised, from seansastronomyshop.com. Lot of people claim that these are breakthrough wide-field EPs that work well in fast scopes without costing a fortune. I certainly hope so. I will keep you posted.

[Striker]

Wow...look at the size of the number's on these eyepieces.....are they for old people....lol

Look forward to your review Steve.

[janoskiss]

Well, I have given them all a short workout in my ED80 (which is an f7.5), looking at leaves, tree branches, flowers and insects, and I am extremely pleased with these EPs so far. (But now it's starting to rain so I had to bring all the gear back inside.)

I compared the 21mm Stratus with the 19mm Panoptic and the 13mm Strat with the 13mm Nagler. I also considered how they compare with the 30mm superview.

The Stratus are a long way ahead of the SV and only a little behind the Panoptic. The main difference between the Strat and the Pan is that chromatic aberrations are more apparent within about 5-7 degrees of the edge of field in the Strat. But surprisingly, apart from the false colour, the Strat remains quite sharp to the edge. I suspect that at night these differences would be less apparent.

There is heaps of eye relief (ER, specs say 20mm), so glasses would not be a problem with these EPs. I prefer the tighter ER of the 19mm Pan though. (I generally like tighter ER than most people.) All four Stratus eyepieces are qualitatively very similar in optical performance (the quality of the image across the field of view). Eye placement is a bit more touchy with the 5 & 8mm (more like the Nagler 13mm) than with the 13 and 21mm.

I spent a bit of time comparing the sharpness of the 13mm Strat and Nag (looking at small insects 30-50 metres away), and could not see significant difference except for the slight dropoff in sharpness and the chromatic aberrations at very outer few degrees of the FOV in the Stratus. The Strat was actually more comfortable for me; less prone to black out. At night, with enlarged pupils, this wouldn't matter so much.

So, very happy so far... :D :cool:
I just wish the clouds and rain buggered off.

[ballaratdragons]

Will be good to hear the report through the scope at night Steve.

Looks strange seeing such BIG EP's with only 1 1/4" barrels.

[Starkler]

I have split off discussion about the new customs limits to a new thread.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=5380

If I didnt know about it, im sure others didnt either :)

[togo54]

Wow. That's where I bought my dob a couple weeks ago. It's a small world.

[dhumpie]

Sounds like the ep's are a winner but I will reserve judgment until you can get them under some starlight. I would like to know how the edge of FOV performance is in fast scopes and if they have that annoying flare that seems to pop up in the Orion Expanse and ED2 line.

Darren

[dhumpie]

The other thing to compare would the brightness of objects say between similar focal length ep's (i.e. 21 Stratus and 19 Pan, 13 Stratus and 13 Nagler, etc.) to see how "deep" the ep's can go. Also check to see how "neutral" the colors are in comparison to the TV's on planetary and luna (I know my Radian did not fare too well in that department against a similar focal length X-Cel ED2). Am I being to picky :)

Darren

p/s: I have a used KK 20mm Widescan III coming (courtesy of Astromart) and I will compare that to my 20mm Orion Expanse and give a report when I can :)

[janoskiss]

Here are some initial impressions after a few hours observing with an 8" f6 Dobsonian from light polluted back yard over two nights, in 3/4 and nearly full moonlight.

Sharpness
To my untrained eye and in poor-to-fair seeing, on-axis sharpness of the Stratus is as good as any of my Televue EPs. Edge sharpness looks good too, with some softening as you approach the edge. But unlike in the GSO Superview, stars near the edge of field can be made sharp by refocusing.

Edge performance
There is some flaring on bright stars close to the edge, but mostly only in the blue end of the spectrum. You get mostly dark blue-purple flares, but otherwise the star is still a point (albeit a bit softened without refocusing). I could not see any flaring with dimmer stars (mag 4-5 I guess), just slight softening.

Comparison with Nagler
This is very similar to what I see in the Nagler, except with the Nagler being an 82 degree FOV EP, the outer 5-10 degrees of FOV are a long way from the centre. With the 68 deg FOV of the Stratus, one is ore likely to notice the quality of the view near the edge.

Comparison with Panoptic
A better comparison is between the Panoptic and the Stratus, and the views are quite comparable in quality. Panoptic has similar aberrations, just to a lesser extent. It is not a huge difference but it is fairly easy to see. I also find the Panoptic quite a bit more comfortable. If they'd cost the same I would opt for the Pan, but at less than 1/2 the price, the Strat might be the keeper (especially as I'm dreaming of binoviewing).

Eye relief
The Stratus have very long ER and I think a rubber or foam extension to the eyecup will make the EPs more comfortable for me. (But almost every medium to long ER EP has too short an eyecup for me. Ditto binos.) But they are not at all difficult to use, and quite forgiving with eye placement. The Nagler 13mm is somewhat more touchy.

On the Moon
I did not notice any false colour when viewing the Moon, and the short focal length Strats did brilliantly. But conditions weren't good and I was also dodging clouds, so I did not get to spend as much time on the Moon as I would have liked.

On Mars
The 8mm Stratus was superior to Shorty Plus barlowed 13mm Nag or barlowed 19mm Pan. Less false colour and less stray light. I cannot say more due to poor seeing and tube currents.

Colour "temperature"
The colours of planets through Televue EPs always looked too orange to me when compared with my GSO and other Plossls. This is true for all my TV EPs: Plossl, Panoptic and Nagler, so it must be that they all use the same coatings. The Stratus are more colour "neutral", more like my budget Plossls. I do prefer the neutral look.

More to come
Now these were just impressions in poor conditions and I could change my mind about any of the above, when I get out under some dark skies. This weekend we're mooned in but hopefully the weather cooperates the w/e after. Also there'll be some more critical Moon observing; hopefully tonight on the full Moon.

[Starkler]

Steve, interesting what you say about softness toward the edge. A very important question is which scope were you using when you tested this ?

You also mentioned the panoptic to be "more comfortable". The 19mm panoptic I find quite short on eye relief. I generally equate generous eye relief and easy eye placement with viewing comfort. Can you expand on how the panoptic was more comfortable?

[janoskiss]

:doh: Thanks Geoff. 8-inch f6 Newtonian.
Edited previous post to say so at the beginning.

[Starkler]

Doh I edited my post to include a second question :doh:
Did you see it before you made a reply?

[janoskiss]

It must be that the 19mm Pan ER + eyecup combination is a perfect match to the shape of my eye socket & cheek bones. With the Pan I just look, resting gently against the eyecup, and take in the full field of view with no blacking out or kidney beaning ever. I never need to consciously adjust eye placement with the Pan. Not so with the 13mm Nagler, the Strats, or with Bird's Radian or your XL that I've tried at Snake Valley. And when I barlow the Panoptic, the "perfect fit" is no more.

I believe I do prefer shorter ER than most people. Besides stand-alone EPs, just about every binocular I've tried (including some $500+ ones with 50-60mm aperture) has too much ER for me that I have to accommodate by learning how to position the binos farther from my eyes.

[dhumpie]

Thanks for your in depth review of the Stratus line. They do seems to be better then current crop of wide field ep's out there like the Expanse and the Superviews from what you have said. Keep the updates coming on how well they perform over the next few weeks. I am tempted to get some too since they do not cost an arm and a leg like them Nagler's :)

Darren

[janoskiss]

I viewed Mars last night for a couple of hours (didn't actually get around to the Moon). I'm getting somehwat different impressions to the previous times I've used the EPs, so I will not post any more comments on these EPs for a while, until I reach some more definite conclusions.

[janoskiss]

Had a great time observing tonight. The Stratus eyepieces did really well on Mars and DSOs. Few quirks (some took me a while to figure out): eye placement is forgiving but not when it comes to aberrations, especially false colour; EPs too heavy for brass ring type 2-1.25" adapter and unfortunately only the 21mm reaches focus as a 2" (maybe I'll buy an extender). Really good seeing here tonight. Short FL EPs gave great high mag views of Mars. 13mm Stratus fared really well against the Nagler on Mars, on detail in Tuc47, faint stars around LMC and Tarantula and near Orion Neb ... in the f6 Dob.

I think I'm going to enjoy these EPs. :prey: :)

[janoskiss]

Time for an update.

Finally got these EPs out under some dark skies last night after a few weeks of light-polluted backyard observing. Scope: f6 200mm Dob.

13mm Stratus and Nagler
As some of you would know I already sold my 13mm Nagler. So that should tell you what I think of the 13mm Stratus. Very comfortable, easy viewing with very little to complain about. Looking for the 5th & 6th stars in the Trapezium in marginal conditions, it seemed at least as capable as the Nagler as far as resolving detail goes. The Stratus has some light scatter off the edges of the lenses that is not pretty when a bright object is on the edge. But this is essentially a non-issue, unless you like looking at planets with them sitting half in half out of the FOV. Unlike the Nagler, there are occasional internal reflections when looking at bright objects but nothing devastating. This is true for all the Stratus EPs not just the 13mm.

Now that it's sold, I can say that I found the 13mm T6 Nagler to be a bit of "try-hard" eyepiece. The characteristics of the optics seem to change quite abruptly from 50-60% of the FOV outwards. I don't know what it is exactly, but I just got the feeling that it is a weird, unnatural(?) design that is trying to push very agressively the limits of what is possible within the design parameters. I still love the eyepiece and nothing beats the ultra-wide field, but at the price I felt it's not good enough. There I said it! :scared3: Had the Nagler been 2/3 the price it would have been a keeper instead of the Stratus at little over 1/3 the price of the Nagler.

General comments on performance
Edge performance is very good with all the Stratus EPs. Best way to describe it is by comparison with the Panoptic. Looking at the flaws at any point in the FOV of the Panoptic (abberations like false colour, "softening" or little bit of seagulling), they seem to be about nearly twice as bad at an equivalent point in the FOV of the Stratus. Now, this is still very good, because twice a small aberration is stil a small aberration; and in the centre: twice nothing is still nothing.

The most obvious flaw to my eyes is the false colour from 75% outwards on bright objects like planets and the brightest stars. Stars have a bit of a blueish tail - like I tried to explain above -, similar to the Panoptic, but the tail is about twice as long in the Stratus. The false colour is not much of an issue though with most DSOs, and planets can be placed closer to the centre of the FOV.

Power to the People: 5 & 8mm Stratus
I found the shorter focal length (5 & 8mm) Stratus EPs very nice for higher magnifications without the very short eye relief of typical short FL EPs. I tried them alongside my HD orthos on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn, globs, and a galaxy or two. While the orthos have superior image quality (esp. wrt. contrast), I can see the comfort factor of the long eye relief winning in the long run, with the orthos being kept for the occasional closer look. With the Dob, the wider field is nice too, because you can turn your back on the scope a little longer and still have the object in view. Also even if it does go out of view, the wide field makes it much easier to search for it by panning around.

Colour "temperature"
Looking at Mars and Saturn, colour seems a bit on the warm side in these EPs (perhaps also with a very slight hint of yellowish tinge on the Moon), compared with HD orthos. I found surface features on Mars easier to make out in the orthos, and I believe this is at least in part due to their more neutral colour transmission.

21mm Stratus & 19mm Panoptic
Finally, a few words about the 19mm Panoptic - 21mm Stratus comparison. I still haven't decided on the fate of my 19mm Panoptic. It is my best, most comfortable EP, but the 21mm Stratus is not far behind. The biggest issue for me is eye relief. For me, the Pan is perfect, while the Strat has way too much ER and it can get a little difficult to keep my eye centred on the huge lens when panning around (no pun intended) with the Dob. Kind of like the Radian I tried at Snake Valley. (The 21mm seems to have even more ER than the other Stratus EPs.) Maybe an extended eyecup would help. In other more subtle ways the Strat is just a little behind the Pan in performance, but it's pretty darn close. So is that little bit of extra performance worth over $200 or 2.3x the price? I know that only I can answer that... It is a really difficult decision because I can see myself regretting either which way I go. It's a lot of money, and I want to get into binoviewing some time in the future, and then expensive EPs will become twice as expensive.

[iceman]

Great report Steve. You should combine all your thoughts (and pics) into a word doc and send it to me to put in the reviews section.

[janoskiss]

I might do that Mike..
Anyone know how to compare sharpness between different EPs?

[Starkler]

Quite simple.
Get your collimation spot on and then check how tightly stars focus on a night of good seeing.

[davidpretorius]

great and very informative review!!

one of the best!

[dhumpie]

Excellent report Steve! You answered all my questions and more :) Anyway the KK Widescan III 20mm came in last Wed and I had a chance to try it out under Ron's (Astro Ron) dark skies. The ep would not focus in my C6 (not enough focus travel) so I had to test it out in Andrew's (astro_south's) 12.5" f/6 dob. Very good across the entire field with maybe the last 1/4 of the field going soft. Eye relieve is okay although I need to move my eyeball around to take in the whole field so I guess it is less than 15mm er. Last night I had it tested in my Orion 80ST. Essentially the same performance as in Andrew's scope. Have not had a chance to test for flaring yet though.....anyway...

Darren

[janoskiss]

Do you mean the Airy disk is smaller in a sharper EP?

[Stu]

Sharpness can also be a bit more detail. When Dave and I were comparing the panoptics to the meade series 5000 plossls the stars were just as sharp (at F8 mind you) but something to do with the background was different. In a really dense star field, using the plossls I couldn't really see much background but in the pano's i could amost see faint star clouds or something like that. It's hard to describe, but the liked the view more.

[Argonavis]

Steve - great report. I would encourage others to do the same, as they are invaluable guides before people spend often big $ on eyepeices.

Interestingly, Baader have recently began marketing their Hyperion line of eyepeices, which appear almost identical to the Stratus (same 68deg FOV, 20mm eye relief, same focal lengths), with the addition of threads for DSLR's and claimed superior coatings.

[janoskiss]

Stu, that sounds like contrast rather than sharpness... :shrug:

[janoskiss]

I saw the Hyperions last week at York Optical in Melbourne. They were going for $265 each (or $285 maybe). At that price though there are more options, such as the Meade SWAs and UWAs. On superficial inspection the coatings look the same on the Stratus and Hyperion. In fact, the eyepieces look almost identical except for the longer 2" barrel bit on the Hyperion. This should help the EPs reach focus in a 2" focuser without needing a 1.25" adapter. Only the 21mm of the Stratus line can be used as a 2" EP in my Dob. On the other hand, Baader warns that the 1.25" barrel of the Hyperions might hit the mirror in a 2" diagonal. No problems with the Stratus there, which work fine with my ED80 + 2" mirror diag.

[Starkler]

No Steve, a sharp eyepiece will focus stars to a pinpoint of light (given good seeing and a good scope), whereas with a less sharp one they will appear as blobs.

Definition of sharp : My pentax xl in Marks Tak ;)

[ausastronomer]

Steve,

One of the best tests for sharpness of a high power eyepiece is to count the craterlets in Plato (on the moon) and compare which craterlets you can and can't see in the respective eyepieces and how easy they are to see. Unfortunately this doesn't help with the longer focal length eyepieces you are dealing with here.

One option is as Geoff mentioned to focus on a star and see how tight they focus down but there are a few things to be aware of here.

When you are working with lunar/planetary features, to compare eyepiece sharpness, the analysis generally takes long enough to even out the effects of variable seeing as you will get enough moments of "good seeing" with each eyepiece to enable you to judge the eyepieces performance when the air was still. It's unlikely that you will get this same evening out effect on a single star or starfield, as their simply isn't enough to concentrate on with "a few stars". You need to be able to evaluate what is attributable to "seeing" and what is or isn't attributable to the eyepieces themselves and sometimes you need more than "a little" experience to figure this out. As Geoff mentions if your going to do this using a starfield make sure its a night of good stable seeing to eliminate as much as possible atmospheric variations. I also recommend that you try to use stars of approximately Mag 7 to Mag 10 (if you use this method) as stars in this range will not be as affected by diffraction effects eminating from the scope itself (eg. spider, secondary, mirror clips etc).

Another option is to pick the eyepiece "you think" is going to be the least sharpest of the bunch. Study the moon and select a lunar feature that is on the verge of visibilty and resolution and then see how it looks with the other eyepieces and see how much better the other eyepieces resolve the same features. Then work in the reverse order on a different set of features starting with the eyepiece you think will be the sharpest.

CS-John B

[janoskiss]

Thanks for the tips John. I can't wait to give the EPs another workout. Only if the clouds buggered off...

[davidpretorius]

thanks john, food for thought.

asimov has sent my his LV 5mm, so i hope to compare the 6.5mm series 500 and the LV 5mm and then 12.5 in the 2.4x barlow with the moon tonight!

Looking at the vixen, it is lovely, but i can't help feeling that is a cheat ie a 10mm eyepiece with a 2x barlow. Is this quite common to simply add a barlow to the design?

but then again,

[janoskiss]

That's how most of the ultra-wide designs work, Davo, including the Nagler.

[janoskiss]

After one last long look tonight (dodging clouds), I have decided to keep my 19mm Panoptic and sell the 21mm Stratus. This decision came after a number hours spent looking through both eyepieces. The Stratus definitely wins in the ease-of-use category. You can look into it from practically any angle and see the full field. The

Panoptic wins in the aberration category [ aberration(panoptic)=0.5 x aberration(stratus); small = 0.5 x small ]

[janoskiss]

Spanner in the works: a fantastic 2" barlow!! Wow! Don't need the 8mm & 5mm Stratus anymore. Keeping the 13mm. I will write up the whole saga soon. :D

[Argonavis]

What barlow? where did you get it?

[Argonavis]

actually I love my barlows - I have televues x2, x1.8 and x2.5 and a klee x2.8, no powermates, I assume that the older TV barlows are every bit as good as the newer powermates, but I have never tested this proposition

[janoskiss]

2" Japanese barlow, leftover from BATSC (now merged with Bintel). Supposed to be same as the University Optics barlow. It is baffled extremely well and with the 19mm Panoptic it creates a near perfect 8-8.5mm eyepiece. It works very well with my HD orthos with little loss of contrast. Way better than the generally highly regarded Shorty Plus which I sold cheap after I got the 2" barlow.

[mick pinner]

l tried the Stratos 8mm in the Meade last night and l can tell you it does not work at f/10, terrible beaning regardless of eye placement, however it works a treat in the Zenithstar at f/6.

[janoskiss]

Sorry to hear, Mick. What were you viewing? With the Moon you need a filter. Neutral density + blue works best for me. Otherwise in my Dob, f6 or barlowed f6 (effective f12-13) the Stratus have been very well behaved and very forgiving when it comes to eye placement.

[mick pinner]

l was looking mainly at dso's with the sct at bothf/10 and f/6.3 and it did not work for me, however when in the Zenithstar it works a treat, nice wide crisp views, different ep's for different scopes that's all. l must say that the finish and quality of the ep seems first rate.