[gregbradley]

Whilst Sydney is clouded out and showering I was out in pristine clear dark skies last night with a bunch of high end eyepieces, several of which are new to me. The seeing though was poor but a little better than the night before which was atrocious.

Scope was AP130GT and mount was an AP1600GTO.

Firstly I looked at the crescent moon. I used a new to me 6.5mm Baader Morpheus.

Very nice. Hardly any colour on the limb of the moon (most eyepieces seem to have some). Very sharp and easy to look through. Happy.

I also tried out a new to me 9mm APM XWA 110 degree eyepiece. Wow, love that, also very sharp to the edges, same lack of colour and this immersive broad view. Yowza! What an eyepiece.

I then tried 2 barlows. An APM 2 inch ED barlow and a Bintel 2 inch ED barlow. I did not spend a lot of time with either but wow the Bintel barlow is quite a bit better than the APM one. $89 well spent. I had read the GSO barlows were superb and the Bintel one seems to be a rebranded GSO barlow. Its nice, both are well made and high quality.

Then tried a new to me Televue 18.2mm Delite. Hmmm, not so good, a fair bit of colour in the limb of the moon but sharp. Disappointing. I had read the 18.2 Delite being among quite a few people's favourite eyepieces. Its not a patch on the Morpheus. I used again later and its quite good on deep sky. I like the sliding top to match your preferred eye height. That is very clever and works well so you can get a comfortable view.

To be explored more thoroughly at a later time. Overall a nice eyepiece but its in some top end company.

Next I tried the APM 12.5mm Hi FW. I have had this out once before and I liked it as it had the brightest view of my eyepieces. It seemed even better last night with good correction all the way to the edge and very sharp bright view. It does show tiny dim stars which adds to the beauty of the view. I got a new appreciation for this eyepiece and am very happy I got it. It cost more than any of the eyepieces but its worth it. Also comfortable to look through.

APM 30mm UFF. I have looked through this a couple of times before now. I appreciated it more this time. Lovely views, very flat, stars are pinpoints great for cruising the sky. Love it.

So last night really sold me on how good these APM eyepieces are. The barlow at this early stage maybe not so much compared to the Bintel one but the eyepieces are all wow, are beautifully made, have very good caps and a great anodising finish. They seem to have gotten a lot of performance but at a fraction of the normal high end eyepieces price.

I do like my Nagler 3.5, 9, 16 and TV Plossl 32 and 15 and Delite 18.2 (I am sure it will be fine). But TV's reign as top, dog gaining higher prices has been disturbed by these "newcomers". Not necessarily the top choice in any category.

Spent some time with the Morpheus 17.5mm and again superb superb.
I looked at the moon through a new 5mm TMB Planetary II eyepiece. Very sharp, a bit of false colour on the limb again showing fantastic value for a $55 eyepiece. I have several of them now, 3.2, 5, 7.5 and 9mm. They sell on ebay and also on Aliexpress for around $48-50 each. First time purchase for me from Aliexpress and it seemed to go well, but a report here on their bad quality control would make Ebay the safer buy as you could return it if they allow returns.

So Baader Morpheus, APM XWA, Hi FW and 30 UFF are wonderful eyepieces and very nice to use.

I had a TV 13mm Ethos a long time ago and it was also very wow, so I guess I like 100 degree eyepieces! But for the price of one you can almost get 3 APM 100 degree eyepieces. Hard to justify 3X the price for very similar performance. I guess its like APOs. You pay 2 or 3X more for that last little bit of performance. Gains at the top end seem to cost a lot more to obtain.

Anyway, a good nights' session. The AP130 makes a good night cruising machine.