best Planetary Ortho or radian for my 12" Dob?

For my 12" f5 Dob and my 127mm and 180mm Maks which of these EP's is the best for planetary views? With ther most AFOV?

TMB Super Monocentric,
Zeiss or UO Abbe Orthoscopic,
Brandon Orthoscopic,
Clave or TeleVue Plossl,
Takahashi HI LE Ortho.

Expert opinions needed. Anticipated thanks for any tips.

Cheers

You've got a very good list. If you want field of view you should forget the TMB Supermonos which at 30 degrees are tight tight tight.

Your orthos are mostly 40 to 45 degrees, mostly towards 45 degrees.

Hard to believe that plossls were once considered wide field eyepieces (at around 50 degrees). The TV plossls have a strong following and a good reputation but Chris Lord didn't have much positive to say about plossls in his History of the Eyepiece. If I remember the argument correctly, the plossls sacrifice a tad of on-axis performance to get their "wide field." Whether anyone but Chris Lord would notice is a hard question.

I see SOME people swearing by their Tak LE's but by and large when people decide money is no object they seem to sell their Tak LEs.

The UO HD orthos are well regarded.

The radian is one of a very limited number of eyepieces with which I have had truly bad experiences, as in replacing a radian with another eyepiece and easily seeing more detail in the other eyepiece. This also happened once with a Burgess Optics "planetary" eyepiece which I would like to revisit again to see if my impressions were accurate. Anyhow with the radians it has happened to me twice, and I have read similar reports from other observers, and they are not "competitive" as planetary choices in my view.

With some of the less expensive options I think you should just buy a few used and try them and sell any you don't like.

I think it is a mistake not to have the Edmund Optics RKEs on your list and certainly the Pentax XWs. The latter qualify as excellent planetary eyepieces and also have the most field of view of any on your list. I've tried a number of the options you list, and on that list, I give the nod to ZAO II and UO, but opinions vary.

good luck,
Greg N

Those are all good eyepieces.

In a 12 inch f5, some are better corrected thatn others, the Televue plossls, the Super Monos are good at that f ratio. The taks may well be, but I can't confirm it.

The orthos are slightly correection limited beginning about f6, but it is not really a big deal at f 5.

Other factors become rather more important, such as field of view, especially if you have a a 12 inch dob and rely on the object drifting across the field. Nagler type 6's are very good for this application.

In the Maks at f 10 plus, "all ist klar."

Paulo Mesquita said:

For my 12" f5 Dob and my 127mm and 180mm Maks which of these EP's is the best for planetary views? With ther most AFOV?

TMB Super Monocentric,
Zeiss or UO Abbe Orthoscopic,
Brandon Orthoscopic,
Clave or TeleVue Plossl,
Takahashi HI LE Ortho.

Expert opinions needed. Anticipated thanks for any tips.

Cheers