Quote:
Originally Posted by Suzy
[U][I][B]The bit I edited was I was asking if i got a high quality 10m instead of 5m ep would i lose much quality if i barlowed. Shortly after i posted i removed it, because i was contradicting myself, as a barlow will reduce quality somewhat, and i'm after the best quality i can get, i'd be going backwards. It was only that this ep is sooo expensive that i thought i'd be better of doubling it's use. So I am sticking with the 5m and not getting lost in the confusion.
|
For years I was using 10.5 and 14mm pentaxs barlowed as my planetary viewing combos and only fairly recently added a 7mm pentax for native use.
If you use a good barlow, you really only loose very very little with a few percentage points of extra light scatter.
A pentax XW coupled with a good barlow like a televue or orion deluxe will give you a much more pleasing view in a dob than say a tmb planetary, and I doubt you could perceive any difference in sharpness from an ortho.
A lot of people who carry on as purists on forums will imo exaggerate tiny differences. Ask Dave47tuc what difference there is between Zeiss and UO orthos and whether the tiny almost imperceptable difference is worth spending many multiple times as much.
You really need to see for yourself and get an idea of whats important to you and to develop though experience a personal system of weightings to the various characteristics of different eyepieces before deciding what compromises to make in deciding to spend your hard earned.