Telescope Reviews: 6mm Radian, Delos Shootout

Recently, I did a shoot out on Jupiter between a 6mm Radian, a 6mm Delos, and a 12mm Nagler hoisted on a 2X TeleVue Powermate. It was done on an F/5, 12.5 inch Portaball. Jupiter was not well placed since it had just risen for about an hour before I did the test. I was too tired for wait an additional hour or so for the planet to be better positioned. However, the seeing was quite good since a cool front had cleared through the San Antonio area the day before. I have posted on my likes for the Radian line before. They give 20mm of eye relief and images that are quite sharp and contrasty. How would it compare?
--The 6mm Radian: I started here. Jupiter looked quite nice at 254X, and an exit pupil of 1.3. Being fairly low above the horizon, bands and festoons came and went as the atmosphere fuzzed out the details. However, sharp views also appeared. I enjoyed the views, both on and off axis. Its weight of 9 oz offered no balance challenges.
--The 6mm Delos: I was surprised how noticeably better the view was both on and off axis. When times of better seeing came, Jupiter looked more contrasty and sharp. The belts were better defined. Focus snapped in better than with the Radian. The adjustable height eyepiece guard worked fine. The 72 degrees of AFOV was a nice bump up over the Radian. Its 15.5 oz of weight offered no balance challenges.
--The 12mm Nagler with a boost from a 2X TeleVue Powermate. This was a surprise! The views with this combination were only slightly less sharp and contrasty the views through the Delos, both on and off axis . This combination provided noticeably better views of Jupiter than with the Radian. This given that there are additional lenses for the light to travel through, resulting with some light loss and contrast. However, Jupiter is quite bright, and some light loss won’t affect the views much. That might be another matter on dimmer deep sky objects. Also, its 39 oz of weight might cause some balance issues. There is the additional inconvenience of switching out eyepiece units into and out of the Powermate.
My conclusions: the 6mm Delos definitely won the shoot out. Its sharp, contrasty views, reasonable weight, excellent construction, and large eye relief sold me. The extra 10 degrees of AFOV is a plus over the Radian, which has 60 degrees. In fact, the more I use the Delos, I am beginning to prefer a 72 degree AFOV field over others.
I have posted in other places on Cloudy Nights that I changed my eyepiece strategy to only buy eyepieces that had enough eye relief to use while wearing glasses. All eyepieces used in this test easily met that criteria.
The 12mm Nagler coupled with a 2X TeleVue Powermate came in a strong second. I have a new respect for the Powermate. I don’t like to use a Powermate or Barlow all that often because I prefer the view and less hassle that a single eyepiece provides.
The Radian, with its good images, placed third.
They will be sold and replaced with Delos as additional eyepieces become available in that line.

GeneT