Horrible Eye Relief?

[N1 (Mirko)]

Just an observation I'd like to put out there, from 2 seasons of working with the public.

Got hundreds of people to enjoy Saturn and other planets. Eyepieces used were orthos and Plössls between 6 and 11mm of focal length. Enjoyable for all, a thrill for many especially Saturn. Not one complained about short eye relief.

NOT ONE

[MortonH]

Sometimes I think short ER is good thing for the public since they generally push their eye right onto the eyepiece anyway!

[Don Pensack]

Unless they have to wear glasses, which seems to be about 50% of the people who look through my scope at a public site.

[Kunama]

Originally Posted by N1

Just an observation I'd like to put out there, from 2 seasons of working with the public.

Got hundreds of people to enjoy Saturn and other planets. Eyepieces used were orthos and Plössls between 6 and 11mm of focal length. Enjoyable for all, a thrill for many especially Saturn. Not one complained about short eye relief.

NOT ONE

I still find 20mm best, at the moment I use Delos for outreach with the sliding eyepiece raised about halfway, still some people must have long eyelashes!!

Cleaned mascara off an eyepiece for an hour......

[Atmos (Colin)]

I have really long eye lashes, no makeup though. I got my eye lashes caught under my eye lid once, that was mighty uncomfortable!

Although I wear glasses I take them off when I look into an eye piece anyway.

[N1 (Mirko)]

We do recommend people try these short FLs without glasses - exit pupils are small anyway so astigmatism isn't a problem, but the main reason no one complained I think was that the general public are blissfully unaware of the "need" to see the field stop fully, and at all times (what's a field stop, I hear them ask)

I can appreciate comfortable eye relief myself even if it's a long way down the list (comfortable meaning no blackouts or issues when moving closer in), and the two best EPs in that respect which I have looked through are the TV 24 Pan and the KK 25mm Ortho.

[dannat (Daniel)]

i find the public presume they have to get their eye real close..i use clave plossl & brandons at melt obs., all short foal lengths have your eye on the lens. some people have trouble with the TV 32mm plossl we have [only ep which accepts 1.25" filters]