Ethos or Orthos for planets?

[Darren Drake]

For planetary or the smaller deep sky object viewing I'm curious to know what the preferences of those in this forum tend to be when it comes to eyepiece selection. I know that most of us diehards here have at least 2 or 3 Ethos eyepieces but still often select a relatively inexpensive ortho known to be of high quality for lots of general viewing. I myself generally use use the TV Ethoses but sometimes do grab a smaller eyepiece from time to time to get a different take on the object and it's surroundings. Other's thoughts on this??

[Dragan]

Hey Darren,

Good question. You know my observing style. One of my absolute favorite EP's in Toto is either the 8E or the 10E (probably the 10). The 10 gives me 315x and a 2mm exit pupil. The 8 affords me 393x and 1.6mm exit pupil. Both EP's perform unbelievably as you've seen at past observing sessions. I do love my orthos immensely though and I probably use them as much as my Ethos.

I am excited about Markus Ludes new release of the TMB Supermonos though. I can't wait for those!

[FaithJ]

I use 8mm, 5mm and 3mm Radians for high power viewing in my 18", but I am going to replace these at some point with Naglers or Deloses.

[Adrian R.]

Neither, use a Delos, if available of course...for planetary as illustrated by the OP's post's title..

[FaintFuzzies]

Hey Faith, I can bring my two Delos to TSP if you want to try them out. The Ethos outperforms the Naglers and the Delos outperforms the Ethos in faint extended objects - the very same type of objects you observe.

Thanks Don for my reference.

I'm not planning on getting the 17.3mm Delos as it is too low of a magnification and the 13mm Ethos pretty much covers the same field (I didn't calculate yet to confirm, but appears pretty close). I'm totally looking forward to the 5 and 8mm Delos.

Also still looking for the 8mm SPL to slot right between my 10 and 6mm Zeiss Abbe II's.

[FaithJ]

Hey Faith, I can bring my two Delos to TSP if you want to try them out. The Ethos outperforms the Naglers and the Delos outperforms the Ethos in faint extended objects - the very same type of objects you observe.

Thanks Don for my reference.

I'm not planning on getting the 17.3mm Delos as it is too low of a magnification and the 13mm Ethos pretty much covers the same field (I didn't calculate yet to confirm, but appears pretty close). I'm totally looking forward to the 5 and 8mm Delos.

Also still looking for the 8mm SPL to slot right between my 10 and 6mm Zeiss Abbe II's.

That would be great, Alvin. Then I'll probably be straight round to the vendors' in the morning...

[rmollise]

Which? If you want to save money, get an Ortho. If you don't like looking through a sodastraw (I don't), get an Ethos.

[Jeff Young]

I always switch to a binoviewer for planetary, which pretty much knocks out all the "wide body" eyepiece designs.

Like Rod I'm not a fan of narrow fields in mono, but for some reason they don't bother me in a bino. So my current planetary lineup is CZJ orthos at 25mm, Pentax SMC orthos at 18mm, TV Plossls at 15mm and AP SPLs at 12mm and 10mm. (My scope is f/12.5 with the binoviewer, so I don't really need to go any shorter.)

Jeff.