The TV ep's and the Powermate arrived yesterday, so here are some images of the unboxing and a bit of a 1st light report.

Never having owned or bought Televue it was a pleasant surprise to see how well packed they were, bagged and bubble wrapped with instructions and a little stick on lable which I am not sure what to do with.

Once out of the box the first impressions is how well made they are, solid and well finsished, bigger than I expected but not overly so. All have firm fitting end caps and unlike my experience with Baader ep's when you take off the viewing end cap it does not remove the rubber fold up guard with it. The coatings all looked good and the lenses were pristine. All in all they screamed quality.

Instructions are provided, the first time I have seen instructions included with ep's. They give an intro into various terms associated with an ep and how to get the best out of these, also how to use the pull up and lockable eye cups to get the best of the 20mm eye relief that the Delite design has. The Powermate was simlarly packed and had instructions how to use it and a description of why it differs from other Barlow lenses.

Unblievably the skies parted last night for a while and I quickly set up my short FL Altair astro 70mmED on a SW AZ Goto mount I normally use with a Mak127.

I decided on the ED70 as there were no planets up last night but some good clusters and DSO to try the EP's out on.

First the Pleiades starting off with the 18.2mm then the 11 followed by the 7. I did not try the Powermate. Wow! such a difference between these and other ep's I have. The 18.2 obviously gave the best FOV but in all of them the view was of pin sharp stars all the way across, the contrast was fantastic and the colours held a lovely blue tinge. I compared against the 24mm Baader I have , the Baader is good but the contrast is not as good and sharp.

Next was the Adromeda Galaxy. Again another wow moment. Best in the 18.2 but still good in the 7mm, it seemed to stand out better against the dark background better than I had seen before, less of a faint fuzzy more of a bright fuzzy.

Alberio was next, easily split and showing the colour in all 3. The background stars stood out nicely and again pin sharp.

Next test will be on the Moon and some planets.

Anything I do not like? No, apart from the name, sounds to much like a Buggs Bunny Acme type name. Improvements? Yes, can they make a 22 or a 24mm version? I would buy it straight away.

I paid $250 each for these and no shipping charges as a colleague brought them across, so they worked out at £166 each, a good saving on the UK price.

 

Was out both last night and this morning. Clear skies at 4 a.m. so before work I quickly set up the Mak127 to have look at Jupiter. I simply did not have enough time for both Venus and Mars.
On 18.2mm Jupiter was a fantastic sight, well defined equatorial bands and a good hint of the southern bands. 7mm was too much on the Mak, it had not cooled down properly, but the 11mm gave a stunning view and the bands stood out I was able to get good focus despite the thermals.

Yesterday evening I set up the 6'' Bresser refractor alongside my AA 70ED on a Sky T mount. If the Pleiades were good on the 70ED with the light gathering of the Bresser they were fantastic. I compared the 18mm against a fixed 24mm Baader, not quite a fair comparison and my opinion of the Baader range is that they are still very good eye pieces. The 18mm obviously delivers a narrower field of view but it is sharp all the way across and the contrast is great.

I have yet to try them with the Powermate, my concern there is that the combination of Powermate and a Delite will make for a very long optical assembly

 

My first post here on Astronomy Connect. No better place than the EP forum to do it.

I have a 10" Teeter with ZOC optics operating at f7. Zambuto is all about contrast, so any EP that excels in contrast is worth exploring. I will be following threads like this one to see what others are finding out under the stars. I do not like to use the term "blow away", but something like this is what I am looking for.

I have a number of good EP that the Delite would have to noticeable beat. The 18.3 goes up against my 20XW, 19Pan and 17T4. The 11 against my 10XW and 13T6. The 7 against my 8.8 and 6.7 ES82 and 7 XW.

If I were to buy just one to try out, the 11mm seems to best choice. About 160x and good for a number to DSOs.

Any comments are welcome.

 

10" f/7 = 1778mm
I would say you'd love the 18.2mm ( 98x), really like the 11mm (162x) and find the 7mm excellent on nights of good seeing (254x)
In my scope (1825mm FL), all were superb, but the 18.2mm kept me coming back to look again.
But certainly, the 11mm is an obvious fit for your selection.

 

Don, the 18.3 might be worth a try. My scope is actually f/6.85 and I use a ParaCorr. This gives a FL of 2000mm. The 18.3 would provide 110x and an EP of 2.3mm. This would likely be great on a large number of objects. It is winter now and I have a few months to wait for better weather. Hopefully TV will have a sale between now and March.

 

TeleVue has a sale right now, but not on its brand-new eyepieces. I wouldn't expect a sale price on DeLites for at least a year.

 

Just a note: My memory failed me. The coma-free zone of a newtonian is 0.01778mm times the f/ratio cubed.
At f/4.7, that's 1.85mm
That's still pretty small, but not as small as I mentioned.
The 0.005 x the f/ratio cubed is the approximate collimation tolerance for the primary mirror when used with a coma corrector. At f/4.7, that is 0.52mm.

 

By the way, 5mm, 9mm and 15mm focal lengths will be delivered by the end of the month.
They will join the previously released 7mm, 11mm, and 18.2mm.

 

Oh dear! will have to do some saving I might just go for the 5mm