Lady Fraktor wrote: ↑Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:28 pm
I love my Edmund 28mm RKE.
Thefatkitty wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:29 am
I knew I shouldn't have clicked on this topic...
Joe, thanks for the info; I read it all. And read some of it again. So, two hundred and a bit CAD$ later, I am now waiting on the TMB Planetary II 8 & 9mm. For $38 CDN and free shipping, I'd be crazy not to try them. As well I bought the 28mm EFL Mounted RKE Precision Eyepiece, thanks to the comments on the Ice in Space forum as well as Gabby's post....
I've spent a little over $800 CDN on eyepieces in the past, thanks to recommendations from Gabrielle, nFA, Bryan... Well, you just made that "they made me do it" list, Joe. And I say that in a good way
Mark, Gabi,
When I was a teenager(1970's) I admit I used to look endlessly at Edmund's adverts in S&T for RKE's. I ended up purchasing 25mm and 12mm Meade Orthoscopics via a bulk purchase that was made by our astro club because the price was excellent and my budget very limited. I also bought a 2nd hand 40mm Unitron Kellner which, apart from the narrow
FOV, has always been an excellent eyepiece in my 6"f7 reflector yielding 6.5mm exit pupil 26X magnification and a 1.5 deg true field of view. I have 31mm and 17mm Naglers so there isn't much more than curiosity that would make me want to buy an RKE. I am still looking for a really good 5mm eyepiece. When the financial haemorrhaging from the house purchase & set up slows down, there may be a Pentax XW 5 in my future. I have a Baader Hyperion 5mm and in my 6" f7 newt I don't like it at all. I compared it to a friends XW5 and it was like looking through a dark ND filter. Light transmission is really poor compared to the Pentax.
Those Meade eyepieces and the Unitron Kellner were purchased back in the late 1970's. I picked up a few 10-25mm plossls that came with some small refractors.
About 6 years ago, I decided to upgrade to some premium eyepieces. Generally, I have patiently waited and bought all of them as good value 2nd hand purchases on the Ice in Space classifieds forum. Most members are from Australia so no international shipping to negotiate.
My purchase rules are
I look for eyepieces being sold by members with a long track record on the forum
Member resides in Australia, not NZ or other countries.
Eyepieces optically listed in good to excellent condition ( I don't care if there are cosmetic marks on the barrel)
Price needs to be less than 60-65% of new retail
Cosmetic marks devalue an eyepiece but don't change the performance. I use my eyepieces at night in the dark, I don't sit and admire them during the day in the light.
Read reviews in context or try someone else's eyepiece first in my scopes. Eyepieces are not universally good or bad. An eyepiece well suited to a fast newt may not be suited to an f8 refractor or f10
SCT due to differences in the focal plane. If someone is reviewing the eyepiece in a very different scope to yours, read what they say with care. Try to find a review with a similar scope to your own. Comparative reviews, comparing between eyepieces by experienced observers are the best. Reviews by a purchaser who has just bought their first eyepiece and thinks it's the best are almost worthless. They are probably trying to convince themselves that they have spent wisely but have no baseline. Good reviews on seller sites can be cherrypicked, bad reviews deleted so I look for independent forums, or websites not tied to a retailer.
I'm now very happy with my collection below acquired over the past 5 years and not looking to expand greatly. The percentages are % of retail price that I paid for the eyepiece.
Nagler eyepieces 31mm(50%), 17mm(56%), 12mm(Type I, no price reference but only cost me about USD120), 7mm(55%)
Denkmeier eyepieces 21mm(25%), 14mm(50%)
My total spend on all of the above eyepieces is around USD 1200.
Also have a
GSO Superview 42mm that I use occasionally when I want a bigger exit pupil. The Nagler 31 gives me a wider true field of view. My 18 inch scope is f5.5 so anything much longer than about 40mm wastes light due to oversize exit pupil.
None have been duds, the 12mm type I Nagler is not as good as the more modern TIV or the 13mm Type VI. The
ES 11 is not as good as the Nagler 12 and the Denk 14 leaves both for dead. The D21 is a stunning eyepiece and I happened to be viewing the forum minutes after it was listed. At the price the seller was asking, 25% of full retail I just couldn't say no.
Joe