35 replies to this topic

[gdjsky01]

Looks very nice but 500$ for one eyepiece is insane I get my rent paid for less.

/Jake

LOL! Not where I live you don't! Double that at least. (More like 1100).

Great write up David. The biggest disadvantage is the ES14 is 2 inch only. Anyway I have the 14 and will try it next weekend at CalStar. My friend has a 13mm Ethos so we can A/B on his 25 inch f/5

Cheers
Jeff

[Sarkikos]

I pulled the trigger on the ES14! I ordered it through OPT, so I not only received the Explore Alliance $100 discount, but also the OPT member discount and another OPT temporary discount on top of that! I justified it to the wife as an early Christmas present for myself. (Also, once I described the eyepiece to her, she wanted to observe through it herself.) The estimated delivery date is this coming Tuesday, Oct. 6th.

I will use it in my 10" Newt and probably in my ST80 as well. The ES14 will provide a 1.2 degree TFOV in the 10" at its native magnification of 86x, 43x and 2.3 degrees with a 0.5x focal reducer, 129x and 0.8 degrees at 1.5x (the Owl barlow lens screwed directly onto the EP), and 171x and 0.6 degrees with my Owl 2x Barlow. If I want to use it at 2.5x or 3x, I could use extensions on the Barlow, but that will substantially add to the already considerable weight of the ES14 and a 2" Barlow. There are 2" 3x Barlows out there, and I'm considering that possibility. A 3x Barlow would yield 257X, 0.4 degrees, and a 1mm exit pupil. That's not bad, considering my other eyepieces that have about that magnification have only a 0.2 degree field!
But even the Orion model is about $200, and that is a little steep right after I just bought a multi-hundred dollar eyepiece.

The ES14 will yield a 7 degree TFOV in the ST80, a full degree wider than the 6 degrees through my 2" Owl 30mm! That will be great for observing large nebulae at dark sites, especially if I screw on an OIII or other DSO filter.

I'm not really concerned that the ES14 will only fit in 2" focusers. I would have liked to use it in my other RFTs, but that's OK. I thought I might like to use it on my 150mm Mak, but the ES14 is not really a good eyepiece for that scope, IMHO. The Mak is good for lunar, planetary and double stars, but it is not really the best scope I have for DSO work, and I accept that. I would not like to spend several hundred dollars more to buy the Ethos equivalent just to be able to insert it in 1.25" focusers.

Clear Skies,
Mike

[Tom T]

I pulled the trigger on the ES14! I ordered it through OPT, so I not only received the Explore Alliance $100 discount, but also the OPT member discount and another OPT temporary discount on top of that!

So, if I can ask - what did you pay when all was said and done?

[Sarkikos]

Tom,

Sure you can ask ... and here's the answer: $375.05, about $362 before shipping. That's still about what I paid for my 8" Newt including Dob base and accessories, and about what I paid for my 10" Newt OTA. Even at that discounted price, it's definitely at the upper range of what I would ever pay for any eyepiece. A $600+ eyepiece does not even fit within the event horizon of my concept of a reasonable price. That is a non-starter. IMHO, of course, and YMMV.

Mike

[jsmiller58]

Add me to the list of folks who are adding this eyepiece to his collection... I had been holding out for an Ethos, but in reality the price tag is now too big a hurdle, and I fully expect this eyepiece to be more than good enough! It was nice getting the Explore Alliance discount as well! Of course, I somehow have to retroactively get permission from the CFO...

[Sarkikos]

jsmiller58,

As I understood the situation when I bought my ES14, the discount would be honored for registered members of Explore Alliance until sometime in February 2010. That was my understanding when I ordered from OPT and gave them my Explore Alliance member name. In any event, I received the EA discount, the OPT member discount, and also an OPT sale discount.

The eyepiece arrived today. The fit and finish is excellent, the eyepiece is rather large, certainly longer than any of my other 2" EPs, but does not feel as heavy as it looks. The coatings are nice and colorful, the lenses are clean. There is a removeable rubber eye cup and two dust caps. I prefect dust caps. I do not like bolt cases. I throw them in a box in the closet. They take up too much space in the eyepiece case! So I do not mind at all that I did not get a bolt case.

The field does look like it's 100 degrees, but to see the field edge, I have to bring my eye rather close to the lens. Also the field edge itself, the field stop, does not look sharp. I prefer a nice, sharp field stop. But I've been fooled before. Sometimes an eyepiece's field stop will look somewhat fuzzy in the light of day, but when used in the telescope to look at the night sky, the edge is sharp. We'll see.

I don't know when I'll get to use the ES14 in my 10" Newt or the ST80. Those are the two scopes in which the eyepiece should really show its stuff. I want to use the ES14 to help in locating and observing galaxies and other faint fuzzies in the 10"; and in observing large nebulae such as the Veil, North America, and dark nebulae, in the ST80. Maybe this weekend.

Mike

[jsmiller58]

Thanks Mike for the great words of encouragement! I am pretty excited about this eyepiece as well, so I signed up for the Explore Alliance to get the $100 off. $399 compared to the Ethos price was just too good to pass up! I looked at ordering on OPT, but I did not see the extra discounts (I must have missed it by a couple of days), but it is still a great deal at $399 - I ordered directly from the Explore Scientific store. I will get mine by Thursday, and I will get a chance to try it out this weekend :-) I am really looking forward to the 100 degree experience!

Of course, now I see that 127mm Apo triplet...!!

James

[David Knisely]

I pulled the trigger on the ES14! I ordered it through OPT, so I not only received the Explore Alliance $100 discount, but also the OPT member discount and another OPT temporary discount on top of that! I justified it to the wife as an early Christmas present for myself. (Also, once I described the eyepiece to her, she wanted to observe through it herself.) The estimated delivery date is this coming Tuesday, Oct. 6th.

I will use it in my 10" Newt and probably in my ST80 as well. The ES14 will provide a 1.2 degree TFOV in the 10" at its native magnification of 86x, 43x and 2.3 degrees with a 0.5x focal reducer, 129x and 0.8 degrees at 1.5x (the Owl barlow lens screwed directly onto the EP), and 171x and 0.6 degrees with my Owl 2x Barlow. If I want to use it at 2.5x or 3x, I could use extensions on the Barlow, but that will substantially add to the already considerable weight of the ES14 and a 2" Barlow. There are 2" 3x Barlows out there, and I'm considering that possibility. A 3x Barlow would yield 257X, 0.4 degrees, and a 1mm exit pupil. That's not bad, considering my other eyepieces that have about that magnification have only a 0.2 degree field!
But even the Orion model is about $200, and that is a little steep right after I just bought a multi-hundred dollar eyepiece.

The ES14 will yield a 7 degree TFOV in the ST80, a full degree wider than the 6 degrees through my 2" Owl 30mm! That will be great for observing large nebulae at dark sites, especially if I screw on an OIII or other DSO filter.

I'm not really concerned that the ES14 will only fit in 2" focusers. I would have liked to use it in my other RFTs, but that's OK. I thought I might like to use it on my 150mm Mak, but the ES14 is not really a good eyepiece for that scope, IMHO. The Mak is good for lunar, planetary and double stars, but it is not really the best scope I have for DSO work, and I accept that. I would not like to spend several hundred dollars more to buy the Ethos equivalent just to be able to insert it in 1.25" focusers.

Clear Skies,
Mike

I don't know if a 0.5 focal reducer will work visually with short focal length systems like an f/5 Newtonian or an ST80. There may be significant focus problems, as these reducers are mainly designed for longer focal length systems like SCTs which have a generous focal range (or for CCD systems). With an unmodified ST80, you can only get around 3.87 degrees of field without a reducer (6.6 degrees with a 2" focuser and the largest 2" field stop of 46mm). You would probably have to go to a 2" focuser to get more from using a ES 14 (it is 2" only), but even if you got a 2" 0.5x reducer to focus, running at f/2.5 is *really* hard on eyepiece performance. Good luck and clear skies to you.

[Sarkikos]

David,

I don't know if a 0.5 focal reducer will work visually with short focal length systems like an f/5 Newtonian or an ST80. There may be significant focus problems, as these reducers are mainly designed for longer focal length systems like SCTs which have a generous focal range (or for CCD systems). With an unmodified ST80, you can only get around 3.87 degrees of field without a reducer (6.6 degrees with a 2" focuser and the largest 2" field stop of 46mm). You would probably have to go to a 2" focuser to get more from using a ES 14 (it is 2" only), but even if you got a 2" 0.5x reducer to focus, running at f/2.5 is *really* hard on eyepiece performance. Good luck and clear skies to you.

I've used the focal reducer before in my 8" and 10" Newts and was able to come to focus. I have two different screw-on adapters for the focuser on my 10" and some extensions, so I should be able to come to focus. My 36mm and 30mm 2" EPs focus in both scopes, so I have confidence. Between my different adapters and extensions, I don't think there'll be a problem.

Now, I have upgraded the ST80 to a 2" Crayford. I've used the scope with 2" EPs, such as the 30mm Knight Owl UWA, to good effect, and no problem focusing. That set up gave very nice, wide, 6 degree views of the Veil, Pelican and North America Nebulae this past summer. Incredible sight in a green zone! It would be nice to have a 7 degree true field of view at 14x, 100 degree AFOV, and a 5.6mm exit pupil. That would make for a nice, wide field with a relatively dark background and contrasty image, especially for my middle-aged eyes. The 0.5x focal reducer would make the ES14 the equivalent of a 28mm fl eyepiece, and my 30mm eyepiece came to focus with no problem at all, with some slack on both sides of focus, so I should be OK.

Clear Skies,
Mike

[Sarkikos]

I don't think I made it very clear in my posts that you would need to use a 0.5X focal reducer to have a 7 degree true field of view using the ES14 in an ST80. Otherwise, the field will be about 3.5 degrees, which is still not too bad. I just want to make sure everyone understands that.

Clear Skies,
Mike

[skysurfer]

Looks great ! But price is not far below the original Ethos and so for the jar or hand grenade size (and weight). I hope newer designs will shrink this EP as the 16mm T2 Nagler of 1995 (which was a jar) shrunk to the 'normally' sized T6 Naglers.