Televue Delos vs. Baader Morpheus astro eyepieces on spotting scope (1 Viewer)

[BoldenEagle]

Hi,

I have at the moment Baader Morpheus 12,5 mm eyepiece which I use with my Kowa Prominar 883. It gives about 41x magnification and 76 degree fov. I use it mainly on birds in flight, especially predator and migratory observing.

It feels pretty good optically, eye placement isn't perfectly pleasant though and I sometimes see a yellow glare if my eye isn't centered properly. Eyecup design is very poor, have to make some own tuning with it.

I wonder if Televue Delos could offer better optical quality and more pleasant views. It's more expensive and has little narrower fov (72 degree).

I might get 4.5mm version, because I occasionally need even higher mags than I now can get with 25-60x toom + 1.6x extender (96x). 4.5mm would be about 113x with Kowa 883. I also would like to test the resolution of my Kowa sample, so 113x could be quite ok mag. doing that? I occasionally view moon and planets also. I don't know how good idea it would be but with extender and 4.5mm eyepiece I could get about 180x mag.

So, does Televue Delos offer something so much better that it would be a good idea to get one with 4.5mm focal lenght?

Regards, Juhani

 

[jring]

Hi,

the eyecup design of the Morpheus has often been criticized by users without glasses - it is too short for the generous amount of eye relief.

You should have gotten an M43 extender with your EP which can be mounted between the eyepiece and the eyecup for a longer eyecup and thus a better experience without glasses.

PS: Please try to get good planetary or lunar views with the 96x you have with zoom and extender first on a night with decent seeing before aiming higher. Cassini division on Saturn should be easily visible in a 3.5" scope at around 100x.
180x for a 3.5" scope is about the limit of what is useful under perfect seeing... unless you are a double star observer, that is.

Joachim

 

[BoldenEagle]

Hi,

the eyecup design of the Morpheus has often been criticized by users without glasses - it is too short for the generous amount of eye relief.

You should have gotten an M43 extender with your EP which can be mounted between the eyepiece and the eyecup for a longer eyecup and thus a better experience without glasses.

PS: Please try to get good planetary or lunar views with the 96x you have with zoom and extender first on a night with decent seeing before aiming higher. Cassini division on Saturn should be easily visible in a 3.5" scope at around 100x.
180x for a 3.5" scope is about the limit of what is useful under perfect seeing... unless you are a double star observer, that is.

Joachim

Hi Joachim,

I think the eyepiece I got was some older batch because I bought it here in Finland and it didn't include the M43 extender (allthough I thought it would because in Baader website it was told so).

Anyway I tuned my old Leica eyecup to fit the Morpheus and it's ok for me with glasses but if someone else is using it, it can't be adjusted to different heights. By the way, the eye relief is so long, that even with glasses I need to have some eyecup which gets my eye enough far from the eyelens, quite rare problem and usually it's the other way around...

Yes I would not excpect the 180x mag. be very practical even with planets because first of all the scope sample I have, isn't as good as it could be. It would though be interesting to see what the image quality would be but not sure if it would be worth the money...And 99% of my scope using is birding anyway.

Seeing has been quite poor lately but when last time viewed moon in a decent circumstances, image quality was very good @96x and I think I could gain even more with more magnifying eyepiece and without the extender.

Juhani

 

[wllmspd]

The APM 12.5mm ultrawide is reckoned to be a very good eyepiece for binocular use, so should be good for
Mono use too. I use a 13mm nagler, but it shows some distortion if you pan too fast and the eye relief isn’t as generous as the morpheus. I have made a whole load of custom winged eye cups for my binoculars and scopes from “fat bike” inner tubes and contact adhesive... make what you want!

Peter

 

[CMB]

Does the adapter ring for the Kowa affect infinity focus?

The DeLos eyepiece line is very nice. I use a 14mm one on an 80mm Pentax scope for about 35x. It focuses quite a bit past infinity with this scope. However on our 65mm Pentax it focuses at infinity and just a slight bit beyond, but not as much beyond as on the 80mm scope. The 65mm scope has a shorter focal length than the 80mm scope. Physically the DeLos is a large eyepiece and has some weight.

On the 65mm scope the DeLite line will focus well past infinity like the DeLos does on the 80mm scope. We use the Televue DeLite line with the 65mm scope for this reason, and also because it is smaller and lighter than the DeLos. The DeLite is just a better match for the smaller scope. The DeLite is less expensive than the DeLos line, has a smaller FOV, but still has 20mm eye relief.

These setups are our dedicated birding scopes.

The rubber eyecup ring on both eyepiece lines is very compfortable and is easy to fold down if you don’t want it extended. The eyecup barrel extends an infinite range (no click stops) so you can set it to the exact eye relief needed.

The DeLos has a very large diameter vieweing lens. It is VERY large, and the eye relief is 20mm. I don’t wear glasses or contact lenses. For me, eye placement is very comfortable and so is long term viewing through the lens. BUT, during terrestrial viewing, with the combination of the large viewing lens and 20mm eye relief, I find I do have to get the pupil distance from the lens correct or I see an amber/yellow ring on the outside edge of the FOV. The adjustable eye cup ensures you can get that distance correct and eliminate the yellow ring. Proper eye distance does eliminate it.

I share the scope with someone who wears glasses and needs the full 20mm of eye relief, so the eye cup is seldom extended for my eye relief. It did not take me long to get used to where to place my eye to eliminate the yellow ring. This effect does not stop me from loving the DeLos, or recommending it, because it does go away with proper distancing from the lens.

The DeLite eyepiece has a more normal diameter viewing lens, and the same 20mm eye relief. With this eyepiece I don’t see the yellow ring if my eye is not the correct distance, or if it is present I haven’t noticed it.

Both the DeLos and DeLite eyepiece are in focus edge to edge. There is no softening of the image at 80%, 90%, or 95% from the center. Images are sharp and crisp right to the edge. I love this! You can watch a water bird traverse the whole FOV and not touch the focus knob unless it moves closer or farther away and thus out of the depth of focus.

With the DeLos’ large diameter lens it makes the FOV feel big. When watching water birds you feel that you have a lot of time to watch them cross the FOV before moving the scope. You also have a lot of room to move your eye around. It feels immersive. It is something that is very difficult to articulate.

The DeLite’s eye lens is smaller in diameter. Because of this it feels more like working with a standard eyepiece or binocular occular. It is still a fantastic eyepiece, and crisp edge to edge, but is a slightly different viewing experience.

I am sensitive to color fringing in optics. Since I don’t wear glasses or contacts there are no other lenses between me and the eyepieces that could induce CA.

With both the DeLos and DeLite I usually don’t see any CA while birding. This includes times when the sun is reflecting off water and you are looking in reeds, around rocks, etc and there are those transition edges from deep shadow to bright reflection. Usually with all optics I can induce some level of CA. These are some of the few pieces of optics where I have a difficult time purposely inducing CA. The times I do see it is because the conditions are very demanding and the amount of CA is very minimal and extremely well controlled.

With both our 80mm and 65mm sopes using the Televue DeLos and the DeLite eyepiece at 35x, I can see the cloud bands on Jupiter, and the three main moons near it.

Since these are spotting scopes I don’t use them much for astronomy, and don’t use high magnification with them. The moon is crisp and sharp and usually has no CA unless seeing is bad. When the seeing is good, at 35x star fields are sharp and reveal the density of low magnitude stars when you cross over them.

Hope this provides some help to you.

Chris

 

[jring]

The APM 12.5mm ultrawide is reckoned to be a very good eyepiece for binocular use, so should be good for
Mono use too. I use a 13mm nagler, but it shows some distortion if you pan too fast and the eye relief isn’t as generous as the morpheus. I have made a whole load of custom winged eye cups for my binoculars and scopes from “fat bike” inner tubes and contact adhesive... make what you want!

Peter

Hi,

I have the APM 12.5 (which is supposedly a clone of the legendary CZJ/Docter 12.5mm) and a few weeks ago we were observing with the club and one guy brought a 120mm bino with two Docters in there and we did a little comparison... they were quite indistinguishable...

Joachim

 

[jring]

Anyway I tuned my old Leica eyecup to fit the Morpheus and it's ok for me with glasses but if someone else is using it, it can't be adjusted to different heights. By the way, the eye relief is so long, that even with glasses I need to have some eyecup which gets my eye enough far from the eyelens, quite rare problem and usually it's the other way around...

Hi,

you know the old saying about an astronomer who had no friends? He got a lathe and suddenly had lots of friends ;-)

Joachim

 

[BoldenEagle]

Hi,

you know the old saying about an astronomer who had no friends? He got a lathe and suddenly had lots of friends ;-)

Joachim

Haha! Maybe I should get one...

Juhani

 

[jring]

Haha! Maybe I should get one...

Juhani

Lol, I guess I finally might need glasses... or post only when I had a cup of coffee or two...

I read your "tuned my Leica eyecup" as turned... thus the lathe...

Joachim

 

[BoldenEagle]

Lol, I guess I finally might need glasses... or post only when I had a cup of coffee or two...

I read your "tuned my Leica eyecup" as turned... thus the lathe...

Joachim

Well, this time I managed without, because I in fact really TURNED the eyecup upside down and put it on the eyepiece and it attached there firmly by friction3

Of course first I detached the rubber sleeve and attached it on the other end of the eyecup and so got quite good solution to use with my eyeglasses.

But the lathe would be the most useful thing to have anyway...

Cheers,

Juhani

 

[BoldenEagle]

I'm very interested about the APM 12.5mm eyepiece mentioned by Peter and Joachim allthough it isn't very high power that I was asking about. Is it optically better than Morpheus? How about ease of use with glasses on? And how about compared to Televue Delos?

Has anyone here tried it with Kowa 883, does it reach focus with Kowa's astro adapters (I have both adapter)?

Baader Morpheus reaches focus with the one which has set screws, not with the one which has knurled screws.

Juhani

 

[jring]

Hi,

when we tested the Docter vs the APM the guy in the club with the complete Morpheus collection was unfortunately not out there with us...

A few of the testers wore glasses - when we had folded down the rubber eyecup on the APM, they could all see the whole field. Also due to the easy eye positioning me and the other testers w/o glasses had no problems to get the postion right.

PS: Since I just put the APM in my ED120 for a quick look in daylight, it should be mentioned that it (and the Docter) have a "ring of fire" - when the eye is not correctly placed. During the night, this is only very slightly visible under the darkest skies, but in bright daylight you will not get kidneybeaning due to wrong eye placement, but an orange edge...

PPS: somebody else has done it for us - at least under dark skies: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/677685-battle-of-the-12mm’s-docter-vs-apm-vs-baader/

Joachim

 

[BoldenEagle]

Thank you Joachim for the info and link, very interesting!

I might want to give this APM eyepiece a closer look...

Juhani

 

[BoldenEagle]

Hi,

I ordered APM HiFW 12.5mm eyepiece from Germany about week ago and it arrived today.

I was little worried if it could reach focus with my Kowa, because the lens is spaced quite deep in the 1.25" barrel. But for my relief it worked with both adapters I have, allthough it was quite close call.

It worked very well with my glasses on when I folded the rubber eyecup down, eye relief is about the same as Baader Morpheus 12.5mm, I could easily see the whole fov. I think it is little better in terms of eye positioning compared to Morpheus. Weight was very considerable when compared to Morpheus...

Image quality? Well, it's sharper and brighter than Kowa's 25-60x @40x and also with 1.6x extender. Contrast is extremely good (Kowa's zoom also has very good contrast). Edge distortions are really minor, I was expecting a lot worse scenario. There is orange fringing on the edges if the eye placement isn't good but I think also in this regard APM performs little better than Morpheus. Sharpness is little better than with Morpheus; the difference is not very big but I think it definitely is there. APM 12.5mm is very sharp indeed, even the edges seems to be quite good.

I also compared the sharpness and resolution to Zeiss Diascope 20-75x and Kowa+APM was at least equally sharp (or even slightly sharper) @40x and @65x. It was also brighter and contrast was strikingly better than with Diascope. In terms of sharpness and resolution Diascope has been little better than my Kowa and 25-60x zoom with corresponding magnifications.

So in summary; APM 12.5mm is little better than Morpheus 12.5mm and it can offer sharper image than Kowa's 25-60x zoom eyepiece, also with 1.6x extender @65x. I think I will be using it quite a lot observing raptors and migration.

I think I will sell the Morpheus and maybe I will get another APM eyepiece, maybe 5mm to get enough magnification for resolution testing and lunar/planetary views. At least with this 12.5mm APM, price/quality ratio is really outstanding I think.

Thank you Peter, Joachim and others for your opinions!

Juhani

 

[daveholden]

Does the adapter ring for the Kowa affect infinity focus?

The DeLos eyepiece line is very nice. I use a 14mm one on an 80mm Pentax scope for about 35x. It focuses quite a bit past infinity with this scope. However on our 65mm Pentax it focuses at infinity and just a slight bit beyond, but not as much beyond as on the 80mm scope. The 65mm scope has a shorter focal length than the 80mm scope. Physically the DeLos is a large eyepiece and has some weight.

On the 65mm scope the DeLite line will focus well past infinity like the DeLos does on the 80mm scope. We use the Televue DeLite line with the 65mm scope for this reason, and also because it is smaller and lighter than the DeLos. The DeLite is just a better match for the smaller scope. The DeLite is less expensive than the DeLos line, has a smaller FOV, but still has 20mm eye relief.

These setups are our dedicated birding scopes.

The rubber eyecup ring on both eyepiece lines is very compfortable and is easy to fold down if you don’t want it extended. The eyecup barrel extends an infinite range (no click stops) so you can set it to the exact eye relief needed.

The DeLos has a very large diameter vieweing lens. It is VERY large, and the eye relief is 20mm. I don’t wear glasses or contact lenses. For me, eye placement is very comfortable and so is long term viewing through the lens. BUT, during terrestrial viewing, with the combination of the large viewing lens and 20mm eye relief, I find I do have to get the pupil distance from the lens correct or I see an amber/yellow ring on the outside edge of the FOV. The adjustable eye cup ensures you can get that distance correct and eliminate the yellow ring. Proper eye distance does eliminate it.

I share the scope with someone who wears glasses and needs the full 20mm of eye relief, so the eye cup is seldom extended for my eye relief. It did not take me long to get used to where to place my eye to eliminate the yellow ring. This effect does not stop me from loving the DeLos, or recommending it, because it does go away with proper distancing from the lens.

The DeLite eyepiece has a more normal diameter viewing lens, and the same 20mm eye relief. With this eyepiece I don’t see the yellow ring if my eye is not the correct distance, or if it is present I haven’t noticed it.

Both the DeLos and DeLite eyepiece are in focus edge to edge. There is no softening of the image at 80%, 90%, or 95% from the center. Images are sharp and crisp right to the edge. I love this! You can watch a water bird traverse the whole FOV and not touch the focus knob unless it moves closer or farther away and thus out of the depth of focus.

With the DeLos’ large diameter lens it makes the FOV feel big. When watching water birds you feel that you have a lot of time to watch them cross the FOV before moving the scope. You also have a lot of room to move your eye around. It feels immersive. It is something that is very difficult to articulate.

The DeLite’s eye lens is smaller in diameter. Because of this it feels more like working with a standard eyepiece or binocular occular. It is still a fantastic eyepiece, and crisp edge to edge, but is a slightly different viewing experience.

I am sensitive to color fringing in optics. Since I don’t wear glasses or contacts there are no other lenses between me and the eyepieces that could induce CA.

With both the DeLos and DeLite I usually don’t see any CA while birding. This includes times when the sun is reflecting off water and you are looking in reeds, around rocks, etc and there are those transition edges from deep shadow to bright reflection. Usually with all optics I can induce some level of CA. These are some of the few pieces of optics where I have a difficult time purposely inducing CA. The times I do see it is because the conditions are very demanding and the amount of CA is very minimal and extremely well controlled.

With both our 80mm and 65mm sopes using the Televue DeLos and the DeLite eyepiece at 35x, I can see the cloud bands on Jupiter, and the three main moons near it.

Since these are spotting scopes I don’t use them much for astronomy, and don’t use high magnification with them. The moon is crisp and sharp and usually has no CA unless seeing is bad. When the seeing is good, at 35x star fields are sharp and reveal the density of low magnitude stars when you cross over them.

Hope this provides some help to you.

Chris

Hi Chris - thanks for this useful info, I'm thinking of trying a DeLite combined with a Pentax 65EL scope. Do you have any advice on which eyepieces in the range are workable. I've done the maths that tells me that the 15mm is about 26x with this scope, but is there much point in using an 11mm lens (for 35x) or even a 9mm lens (43x) - or is this just asking too much of a small scope. Any views at all appreciated. BTW I do have a Pentax lens but I have a problem using this (difficult to get the pupil placement right).
David Holden

 

[wllmspd]

Annoying the morpheus having too much eye relief. I’ve just bought some of their eyepieces for a binocular and suffered the same fate, so I’ve had to 3D print some slip on tube extenders with winged eyecup sides to block stray light. Needed to trial a few to get to e right height first.

Peter