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Posts Made By: Mike Hosea

August 8, 2008 10:10 PM Forum: Eyepieces

8.5 Pentax XF

Posted By Mike Hosea
For me the 8.5XF was flatter than the 12XF. Other than that it was the same except for one, unfortunate detail. Unlike the 12XF, the field group baffling of the 8.5XF wasn't very good, and while both 12 and 8.5 lack edge blackening of the field group, it stuck out like a sore thumb with lunar observation on the 8.5 because the baffling wasn't as good. It wasn't a problem for me with my eye properly positioned, but if I backed off just a little bit, my eye was flooded with glare from the lit up edge of the field group. They actually warn you about this in the papers that come with the eyepiece. Of course they say it's no problem, really, but for me, I'll be the judge. If I hadn't wanted the eyepiece for lunar observing, I wouldn't have cared, but in fact I did, and I did.
--
Mike

September 6, 2008 08:49 PM Forum: Eyepieces

For Mike Hosea

Posted By Mike Hosea
That's cool. It would have been so easy to fix, I was surprised they hadn't already. I hasten to add, though, that I don't remember seeing anything with my eye at the exit pupil, anyway. It was a nuisance when the eye was just outside there, far enough away that you couldn't see the entire field. It's not that I particularly like to observe from that position, quite the contrary, but I invariably encountered that position momentarily while coming or going or with the occasional head movement as I repositioned myself to get comfortable.
--
Mike

October 31, 2008 03:39 PM Forum: Eyepieces

New TMB Planetary Eyepieces have arrived

Posted By Mike Hosea
Apparently these have black barrels, some other cosmetic differences, but according to Astronomics they are not the new line, rather just fulfilling a year-long backlog of the old. This may be an oversimplification, but who knows? Maybe not even Astronomics. They often do, however, supply their own eye relief measurements, so again, not much about internal changes can be inferred from this. A prototype from the new line has been seen, however.

December 29, 2008 06:47 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Plural of Ethos: Ethosi?

Posted By Mike Hosea
Doug Peterson said:

I only have one, but when I get more, what will I call them in the plural?

Apparently the Greek plurals would transliterate to ethe or ethea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos ), but since in this context it is a proper name for an American product and not, semantically, a use of the Greek word that inspired it (edit: inspired the name not the eyepiece), I humbly suggest the clunky-sounding, yet easily-recognized "Ethoses".

February 16, 2009 07:12 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Naglers & Plossls vs "Planetary Eyepieces"

Posted By Mike Hosea
Well, I've had far more disappointment than pleasure as a net result of my experimentation with the simpler, so-called "planetary" designs, but the disappointment was not for lack of performance but for lack of what I would consider anything significant enough to compensate me for the trouble of the whole affair. In short, it never made me happy, and you can be quite certain that it won't compensate for bad seeing, which is the usual performance bottleneck I personally see.

But that is my personal conclusion after years of playing with these things. It is by no means the usual outcome. You simply have to try some affordable things and decide whether you're on the right track. If I were you, I'd buy an UO HD ortho and maybe a TMB SM in a favorite planetary focal length and decide for myself. I'm assuming the ZAOII's will be too hard to come by unless you grab an entire set, and if you have to mention money at all, I'd hesitate to make that kind of investment before I knew it was definitely the direction I wanted to go.

May 9, 2009 02:50 AM Forum: Eyepieces

BO/TMB Planetary Assembly

Posted By Mike Hosea
You should just have 2 lenses, a doublet and a singlet. The singlet is the eye lens, and the steeply convex side faces the barrel. Then the spacer goes in, then the doublet with convex side facing the eye lens, then the retaining ring/field stop thing.

May 22, 2009 08:49 PM Forum: Eyepieces

eyepiece ghosting terminology

Posted By Mike Hosea
Greg, I don't know about "official" terminology here, but I personally reserve the word "ghosting" to refer to internal reflections. They don't move, or more precisely, their location is determined by the bright object's position in the view. The "skittering" kind that depends on where the eye looks, I call "eye glint".

June 22, 2009 09:14 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Repair of defective lens element 8.8 Meade UWA

Posted By Mike Hosea
AFAIK, you cannot buy a new lens to swap in, and your chances of finding a damaged Meade Series 4000 8.8mm UWA with an undamaged eye lens seem rather slim to me (but maybe worth a try).

My understanding is that lens separations can be repaired. I have no experience with any services that do this, but I did a quick search, and this is the first one I found: http://www.focalpointlens.com . I don't know anything about them, so it's not an endorsement. They just say on their web site that they do what you need done.
--
Mike

July 2, 2009 05:35 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Ethos Eyepiece Prices - Just An Observation

Posted By Mike Hosea
John Cassella said:
Haven't looked elsewhere

If you do look elsewhere you'll see that most other dealers are still showing their lower prices as "sale" prices. However, the sale has been going on for awhile now, so possibly Tele Vue is under continuing pressure to move eyepieces. I do see some variation. In the old days the only variation you'd see advertised was whether or not there was free shipping.
--
Mike

September 2, 2009 11:55 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Sell off an Ethos?

Posted By Mike Hosea
Steve Hollenbach said:
Here's an interesting observation. At a comfortable eye position, a significant part of that amazing TFOV is not in view. I have to get my eyeball down on the eye lens and look around.

Yeah, I've heard that before about the 17mm, and I really can't relate when you say "eyeball down to the eye lens". I use a 13mm Ethos almost all the time. Really. Sure it doesn't quite have the eye relief of a Pentax XW or Radian, but it has way more than enough to use without eyeglasses. If I put the eyeguard up, my face touches it but doesn't even press. Do your eyelashes actually touch the lens? With the eyeguard up, does your face push it back down?
--
Mike

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