Re: Planetary Eyepieces

Hi Mark, I just bought a 6mm Burgess Optical/TMB planetary on Thursday from SCS Astro, it arrived
Saturday. I haven't yet had a chance to test it's full potential but it's looking very promising. I
bought it to replace my 6mm circle T Ortho and I'm glad I did. Not only does it have ~ 1.5X the FOV
(14' on my scope against 10') it also has 20mm eye relief.
These qualities alone would make it worth its salt but, it also far exceeds the ortho in contrast,
which I didn't expect being a 2-2-2 configuration not 3-1.
The field is comfortable, helped by the adjustable eyecup, and sharp across at least 95%. I do not
like the undercut on the barrel, the upper land needs to be wider for my focuser and as it contains
the field lens it can't be easily swapped for a plain one. Apart from that niggle I can't fault
them, the coatings and build quality are superb. The shiny retaining ring issue has now been sorted
so no ghosting as with the first production run.
At this price (£45 +P&P) it can't be beaten. Until now I have always sworn by Orthoscopics for
planetary use but I am now a convert. I would compare it favourably with a Radian.
I will certainly be getting the other focal lengths though they are a little dearer.

John Carruthers (No relation to the manufacturer or supplier)


http://mysite.freeserve.com/jc_atm/
"M Dombek" <Fayum@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:9197-44028B67-407@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Would like to ask the group their opinions on better to best planetary
eyepieces for relatively fast refractors.
Just purchased a Williams Optics, 105 ED triplet APO (f/7 FR at 735mm
FL) and am pleased with the views of Saturn so far using my two Meade
eyepieces (an UltraWide, Series 4000, 8.8mm,, and another 4000 Series,
12.4mm Plossl), on top of an Orion 'Shorty-Plus' barlow.
In my box is a 3mm TeleVue Radian that i've used a couple of times. The
Radian, however, is pushing the mag past this scope's capacity and the
image quality breaks up at 245X. Maybe if atmospheric conditions are at
good to excellent I can push it to 245X, but not lately.
Question is this: has anyone had experiences with the Burgess Optical
60° planetary eyepieces (supposedly designed by TMB) that I'm seeing
advertised for $99us ?
Been thinking about their 4 or 5mm to get somewhere in between the 167X
and 245X that I have.
Any thoughts/comments?

Thanks in advance.

Mark


.