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Hi Chris,
BEFORE you contemplate buying a $75-$100 Plossl or even a $500-$600 eyepiece, I suggest you take the 12" along to an observing night and see if you can ask nicely and borrow a high end EP to use in your scope.
You WILL notice the difference, but, trust me, it is better to weigh up the performance/cost relationship first hand on your own scope before shelling out on such an expensive bit of glass.
That said, the TV eyepieces are superb, however, the performance "jump" is not as pronounced as the money indicates.
Certainly, rating the difference in views between my standard Skywatcher plossls and my noname ED $60 eyepiece as well as my Baader Hyperion and my Pentax XF ($35, $60, $200, $235 in order) is something like (with a Televue Panoptic being say 10/10...... 6/10 for the plossl, 7/10 for the ED, 8/10 Hyperion and 9/10 for the Pentax.
Now, a Televue may give you 10/10, BUT the cost jump is about $300-$500 for that extra 1/10 rating. Obviously the Televue Plossl isn't going to be as impressive as the Radian, Panoptic, Nagler and the Ethos, but the higher up the scale you go, the better the performance and features such as clarity, edge definition, field of view and therefore the cost escalates alarmingly.
I haven't personally looked through a TV plossl, but the design would indicate that it would be a similar view to what you have, albeit nicer and better quality....not much difference in my opinion (unless you are an optical connoisseur who demands the last 1% improvement)
That's what you have to weigh up. Are you willing to pay a premium to get the absolute best view that you can, or can you live with say, 8 or 9 out of 10 and therefore be able to buy 2 or 3 good to excellent eyepieces for the same price as 1?
So, try before you buy if you can by going to a club meeting near you and asking nicely, you will be surprised at the range the locals will have available....the best choice is a balance of cost and performance because you will end up using that EP the most (just like my Hyperion which cost me $120 second hand and is the primary EP that I use all the time)
Sorry for the waffle....
Cheers
Chris
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