Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

It appears the 13mm Ethos has now been modified for use in a binoviewer:
http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1792
I enjoyed observing through a 13mm Ethos for the first time last week, courtesy of Linton Rohr.
What a great eyepiece...

If I had to choose between an UHC and an 0111, I'd definitely go for the 0111 with the latter being better under most circumstances.
Although a galaxy filter exists, forget it for most dim galaxies, along with just about any other filter you'd care to name.
Baader filters are just fine although they can be out-performed by the Lumicon brand in my experience.
my 2 pennies based upon many moons of observing

Here's the only partial review I've seen thus far on the 14mm version:
http://www.skiesunlimited.net/index.php?ProductID=5267
It's from a vendor's website so I don't know how unbiased it really is but for whatever it's worth, there it is...

Reviewed in the AM is a comparo of the pentax XW oculars versus Russell widefield eyepieces of similar focal lengths:
http://www.astromart.com/articles/article.asp?article_id=735
Basically, I'm a bit skeptical of the results since I have a Russell 18mm widefield and I consider to be of inferior quality to the other eyepieces in my collection and because the light transmission of the Russell 19mm ocular, reportedly tested at 79%, is less than that of the pentax oculars which evidently have much higher levels of transmission:
http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=507538&poll_id=&news_id=&page=
and:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.amateurastronomie.com/Astronomie/tips/tips3.htm&prev=/search%3F
In fact, it appears the Russell 19mm unit is among the lowest in throughput in the groups that were tested.
Perhaps the difference is difficult to detect visually but I don't think the Russell equals or exceeds the pentax oculars.

Are there any reports on the performance of the 100 degree Zhumell 9 and 16 mm eyepieces? The only one I saw was on an "indoor test." Anything else available at this point?
I was thinking of waiting until Owl services finds a hidden stash of them and sells them for fifty bucks!Then I could buy two for my binoviewer

What's available, besides the Ethos, that really shines in the 8mm range?
I've considered the baader hyperion and its clones. I've read one review that claimed the stars were more "bloated" in appearance while another claimed it was "hard to focus."
The newer offering in the astrotech ed model was evidently the pinup poster for pincushion. :S
I'm sure the radian is good but I don't want the 20mm of eye relief as I want to get closer to the lens to block out extraneous light when I view at higher powers.
I prefer wider fields since I'm manually tracking with a 16" dob.
Anybody have any other choices?

Zhumell's heavy hitter arrived today, along with the clouds. The new eyepiece comes, of course, with a new storm. I mean I can't even do a sidewalk test on it to determine the quality of the coatings. Nevertheless, undeterred, I begin the review process:
1. Packaging: packaging? Yep, packaging. I could never understand the typical Cloudy Nights reviewer's fascination with the packaging a product comes in. (But if I have to read it, so do you). (Who gives a #*^# about the packaging?) Ok Cloudy Nights reviewers, take this: the eyepiece is multilayered in the following: a plastic shroud (bag) surrounds and envelopes the eyepiece, which is confined and secured in a plastic screw type bolt case. A sturdy cardboard box houses the aforementioned confinement system which is then shipped in a second, larger cardboard box rated at the following specs:"edge crush test":32lbs per inch. I bet you never saw those kind of specs on a CN review
2. Coatings: A large photon emitter(aka bright light) demonstrated the fully multicoated ocular to be similar in color, consistency and appearance to the benchmark coatings available in the industry: pentax SMCs. Nice to look at but how will they perform? (I have no idea).
3. Ergonomics: The gracefully enlarging semi-spherical semi-oblate morphologically designed hemi-spherical design assimilates into the contouring digits of the applicant. In other words, IT'S A HAND GRENADE!
Ok, that's all for part 1 of my cursory review of the ocular in question. Part 2 of the review will focus on questions that we really need to answer:
1. Will Floyd finally fix his flexure?
2. Will Linton buy another Ethos?
3. Will Mike Hosea buy another 4mm eyepiece in time for Mars, and, if so, WHAT will he buy and WHEN will he buy it?(credit or debit?)
PS: No squeaks or rattles upon salt shaker movements. Edge distortion, lateral color and astigmatism to be determined by the weather gods. Stay tuned...

I've just come in from testing the Zhumell 100 degree eyepiece, here at Cape Castaic.
My scope is a 16" F4.5 dob with an exceptional primary mirror.
Here are the reasons why I'm returning the eyepiece:
1. Functional: With the rubber eye cup rolled up, there is no way you can see the 100 degree field. It's more like 60 degrees with the eye cup in the extended position for normal viewing. With the eye cup down, you can take in the entire field although the eye relief becomes tight but is still doable as long as you don't wear eyeglasses(I don't). You need to get up close and personal with the eyelens but I didn't note any issues with fogging from the close position required for viewing.
2. Blackouts: present but not too bad when you get used to the eyepiece.
3. Aberrations: without a paracorr, coma is present about 80% out, not bad considering the fast lightcone with my scope. With a paracorr, coma is more suppressed although still noticeable a bit further out towards the periphery of the field of view. Astigmatism is reasonably well controlled and I've seen far worse in your father's widefield designs in my many moons worth of observing. Lateral color exists and you can see it on the limb of Jupiter although it's not as bad as I've seen it on some other widefield designs. I could still discern several bands on Jupiter despite it being relatively low in the horizon, even as Jupiter moved further towards the periphery of the field of view.
4. After viewing through Linton's 13mm Ethos at the LAAS site in Lockwood valley quite awhile ago, you get spoiled for that primo view that only it can offer.
5. General impressions: It's not a terribly bad eyepiece by any means and again, I've seen far worse in older erfle type designs but the lack of field visibility with the rubber eye cup extended for normal viewing is a serious limitation for most observers, including me. The Zhumell model is simply not competitive with the levels of correction I've seen in eyepieces such as the speers waler line(7.5mm and 10mm models) so even with the larger apparent field of view, the image quality isn't quite where it needs to be, but is still better than some erfle widefields I've encountered in the past.
So, somebody had to review this eyepiece and I decided it would be me. As far as I know, this is the first review of this eyepiece. The threads I've read about it thus far on Cloudy Nights aren't, in my opinion, worth spit.
Finally, it's likely this eyepiece would perform better in longer focal length instruments so it still may have its uses but it's not for me...

The reviews I read on it from a website that sells it were all very positive and not all the reviews that people post on the site are positive for the products that they sell.
The barlow is probably made by GSO or equivalent. The non-ED 2" GSO barlow with a 1.25" adapter that I use is quite good. Don Pensack likes it as well and we've talked about it in the past while observing up at Mt Pinos. I anticipate you'll like the ED version just as the other reviewers have...

Given all the hype about 100 degree eyepieces eclipsing 82 degree models and dwarfing everything else, I've still have to ask: are they worth it?
Here's why: I've come to the conclusion, as at least one other amateur that I've read on a google search has, that there is no way you can take in and see a 100 degree field of view at once. There is no way you can take in and see a 82 degree field of view at once. You can look at a portion of these fields, such as the top, bottom, sides or center of the field of view but there is no way you can comprehend all of it at once. It is evident to me that about 70 degrees or so is near maximum of what you can reasonably see at once and comprehend what you're seeing. Even then, if you're looking for a small planetary or galaxy, you're still going to have to view portions of the field in order to realize what you've seen before you identify the object.
So I ask, are widefields really worth it?