[Wavytone]

The Takahashi LE's aren't ortho's - they're Erfle's which are very different. In their day they were very good eyepieces - sharp, high transparency, little colour. But these days the obsession with cheap chinese clones and ultra-wides has more or less killed the market for older quality eyepieces.

The Erfle design has pincushion distortion and a more strongly curved field than an ortho. The right eyepiece (ortho or erfle) depends on the type of scope you intend to use it with.

The next consideration is what are your needs and intended use, for example:

- Do you need long eye relief because you wear specs ?
- Are you more interested in lunar & planetary stuff, deep sky, or wide-field low-power views ?
- Happy to accept a moderate field of view (50 degrees) in return for pin-sharp images, high contrast and low scattered light from a 5 element design, or do you want the "head in a fishbowl" view from the ultra wide eyepieces - but at the same time happy to accept the eye relief is next to nil, not-so-sharp images and scattered light ?

Some other sets I would strongly suggest you keep an eye out for are the Edmund RKE (yes you can still buy new ones) or the Vixen LV or LVW series. The LV's had consistently massive eye relief (20mm) which is a godsend if you wear specs (as I do). Most of the LV's had 50 degree field of view and were a 5 element design, beautifully sharp, neutral colour and high transparency. Vixen also made a LVW (LV wide) series of 1.25"/2" eyepieces, they look like big hand grenades, they are comparable to the TV Panoptic and Radians and Pentax. The only snag is Vixen have ceased manufacturing both the LV and LVW series, and those lucky enough to own sets aren't selling them - these NEVER appear for sale on Astromart, eBay or Cloudynights.

Vixen currently make a NLV series which are apparently optically the same as the LV series - optically excellent, but have the most gawdawful big fat plastic cups around them.