Baader Hyperion Mark IV zoom on Kowa 883 Prominar (1 Viewer)

Hi,

I got Baader Morpheus 12.5mm eyepiece for my Kowa 883 and found it to be very nice to look through. It seems to be brighter than Kowa's TE-11WZ zoom (at about 40x mag.) eyepiece and maybe even little sharper. It also has very wide fov (76 degrees). I haven't done any resolution comparison or other objective testing but in actual use in the field it has been working very satisfactory. Well, after I made it usable by adding old spare eyecup of Leica 25-50x zoom so I can deal with it's very long eye relief, even I'm using eyeglasses...

I'm wondering if Baader Hyperion Mark IV zoom eyepiece might have some optical advantage over Kowa's 25-60x TE-11WZ zoom eyepiece? Maybe Morpheus brightness is better than TE-11WZ because of less lenses but will the Baader zoom be similarly brighter?

Juhani

I believe Henry Link said the Hyperion zoom was brighter than the Kowa. Really tempted to buy the Hyperion zoom and a 773 just to see how the combo works.

I used the Baader Zoom on a Pentax 65mm scope, and out of curiosity I tried it on my Kowa 883 as well. Without doing any formal testing then, I found the Kowa 25-60x was clearly superior in overal image quality as well as ease of view in combination with glasses . Actually I have not seen a better wide-angle zoom yet.

Accipiter_22 said:

Actually I have not seen a better wide-angle zoom yet.

Click to expand...

Yes, TE-11WZ zoom is a premium one, a joy to use. Zoom with fewer lens elements would theoretically be brighter if lens coatings woul be equal but I doubt that Baader Hyperion would nevertheless otherwise be better than TE-11WZ. But it would be interesting to see the difference in practise if I sometime get the chance to test BH zoom.

Juhani

Can't vouch for either in any spotting scope. But I own an astro-modded TE11WZ (for use with 2"-telescope focusers) and have owned a Baader Mark IV Zoom. I use/used them extensively in my 8" f/4.9 Newtonian as well as various f/6 and f/7 refractors.

Not much difference in edge sharpness at f/7 between the two. Get down to f/6, though, and the TE11WZ starts pulling away. The BZ4 has noticeably softer edges at f/6 vs. the TE-11WZ. At f/4.9 in the Newtonian, the BZ4 is decent with a coma corrector, but soft over the outer third of the field of view in the lower power (16 - 24mm) settings. The Kowa holds it own with or without coma correction.

Another key difference is that intangible, "snap" / "oomph" that you get when you focus stars with a premium eyepiece. The Kowa had more of this intangible, je-ne-sais-quoi than the Baader.

Not meaning to dog the Baader. For what it does and the range it covers, it's a bargain and it earned a spot in my eyepiece case--and it was my only non-Televue eyepiece at the time. But the Kowa, despite a slightly more limited range, is still superior to my eyes.

--Phil