My three best and favourites,
The little Nikon CFIUW 10x25 , cracking little eyepiece, and yes it’s a microscope eyepiece that I use for astronomy. Super sharp and crystal clear.
Every plossl and orthoscopic eyepiece in use around the globe for astronomy purposes, is a microscope eyepiece that's had a change of purpose for astronomy. They do a very fine job of it and have done for over 140 years. Since 1860 with the Plossl and since 1880 with the Orthoscopic. Both were originally designed for use in microscopes. There have been countless design variations over the decades to try and improve on them. Some pretty decent eyepieces came out of the variants, including the 5 Element Plossl or Masuyama, as a derivative of the plossl, and the 4 Element and 5 Element Koenigs, as a derivative of the orthoscopic. Albert Koenig was in fact a co worker at Zeiss with Ernst Abbe, who invented and patented the orthoscopic.
Just too many but usually a
20mm Masuyama 85° now...Amazing clarity.
9 Morpheus or 10mm Masuyama 85°at F10
4mm Tak TOE..
so many really even my 12.5 Tak Abbe or 19mm Pan are amazing..below a pic of the 2" compact but weighty 20mm Masuyama.
Bigjoe
Hi Morton, have you had a chance to compare the WO zoom to the Baader zoom?
Hi Steffen,
I haven't done a detailed comparison but I did own the Baader Zoom Mk IV at the same time a few years ago and found them to be similar. I'd say the Baader was slightly better, and the AFOV is a little wider than the WO, but they were more similar than different. I like that the WO goes to 7.5mm rather than 8mm although I didn't test to see if I could actually detect the difference.
Depends on the F ratio of the scope and the eyepieces it can take?
My 6" f7 has a 3.5% diagonal and only uses 1.25" diameter eyepieces Deep Sky
1. 21mm Denkmeier D21
2. 14mm Denkmeier D14
3. 10mm Pentax XW
[+ 5mm Pentax XW for planets]
My 18" f5.5 takes 2" eyepieces
1. 31mm Nagler
2. 17mm Nagler
3. 14mm Denkmeier D14
[+ 7mm Nagler & 5mm & 10mm Pentax XW for double stars and planets when seeing is good enough]
I haven't done a detailed comparison but I did own the Baader Zoom Mk IV at the same time a few years ago and found them to be similar. I'd say the Baader was slightly better, and the AFOV is a little wider than the WO, but they were more similar than different. I like that the WO goes to 7.5mm rather than 8mm although I didn't test to see if I could actually detect the difference.
Interesting, thanks Morton. Why did you end up keeping the WO?
Interesting, thanks Morton. Why did you end up keeping the WO?
Funny story - while on holiday in Cyprus I was offered a Dob to use but it didn't come with eyepieces or a 1.25" adapter. The local astro shop had no 1.25" adapters so rather than passing up the Dob I decided to buy the Baader zoom and use it in 2" mode. On returning home I decided I should sell one and figured I'd get more money from selling the Baader than the WO. Plus I'd been happy with the WO for a while before getting the Baader. And the WO is slightly lighter and goes to 7.5mm. But mostly it was financial!
My current 3 best eyepieces are:
1. Saxon SWA 17mm. ( There is something magical about this eyepiece, open clusters and rich starfields are glorious through it)
2. 6.5mm Saxon Cielo. ( Planets are razor sharp through this eyepiece)
3. Panoptic 24mm. ( Sharp and crystal clear clarity)
Nikon Nav SW’s 7,10 and 14mm
I have the full set but they are my 3 favourites
You like the 40% rule: "Magnifications should be 40% apart".
That is 14/10/7mm.
Extend it both ways, and you have 5mm and 3.5mm on the short end,
and 20mm on the long end (you can see Pentax had reasons for those focal lengths).
Pentax is following that rule with their new 85° XWs: 23mm and 16.5mm are 40% apart. If they continue with the line, the next shorter focal length should be 11.5-12mm.
The Baader Morpheus range follows the same rule:
17.5/12.5/9/6.5/4.5 with the 14mm the "odd man out"
[Originally, 14mm was the longest focal length they could make with the design, but a redesign of the internals allowed a 17.5mm to be made]
I won't argue that the 40% rule always works, but it is a bit more rational than having a focal length every one or 2mm.
I quite like ( understatement ) my WO 4,7,& 16 UWA, perform well in all my scopes, whether fracs, newts or Mak
Backed up by ES 11 and 24mm UWA, gives a great range.
Well, I only have a set of Vixen LVW eyepieces: 42, 22, 13, 8, 5 and 3,5. All were acquired second hand years ago. These are matched to my Vixen NA140SS with a focal length of 800mm.
Most used and, by default, my favourites are the 22, 13 and 8mm eyepieces.
1. APM 12.5mm Hi FW.
2. APM 20mm SWA (Ethos would be a tad better).
3. Baader Morpheus 14.5mm.
I usually use an AP130GT for visual so those eyepieces suit that scope really well. Favourite eyepiece would vary with different scopes.
Greg.
The APM 20mm is a terrific eyepiece. I think you may have bought the one that was in the classifieds a few years ago Greg - I had to order mine from APM and wait a full year for it to arrive. Along with my 31T5 nagler and ES 13mm 100, they'd be my top 3 I guess, with the Baader 8-24 zoom a close 4th.
That's always a tough question. With the 18 inch, my 3 favourite eyepieces are:
- 12.5 mm Nikon HW, I use it a lot in either 12.5 or 10 mm mode. Just a good magnification (150x or 184x)
- 17 mm Nikon
- 7mm delite for high contrast and planetary work.
In the 120 mm f5 refractor, it's definitely the 30 mm es82. 20x mag and a 4 degree rich field view.
