That is one of the things that really hooked me on the lineup. A 10mm Plossl is a real pain to use. 10mm Ortho, same. Even the various Naglers get pretty tight at the higher powers.

Being able to use a 5mm EP and have that nice big eye lens and very generous/comfortable eye relief is amazing!!! Its also great that they are all parafocal.

I observe in high humidity – one of the added bonuses of the long eye relief is that they don't fog up nearly as fast as other EP's. I also have to clean eyelash oils off of them less often.

Can you tell I'm a fanboy =-)

JIS Standards for dust ingress protection

Grade 4

Protected against solid foreign objects 1,0 mm diameter and greater.

Grade 5

Dust protected. Ingress of duct is not totally prevented, but dust shall not penetrate in a quantity to interfere with satisfactory operation of the apparatus or to impair safety.

Grade 6

Dust tight. No ingress of dust.

>JIS Class 4 standards for a premium eyepiece are rubbish – particularly for dust ingress – a 1mm particle is pretty bloody big!

I would damn well expect that a 1mm particle would go no where near to infiltrating an eyepiece's internals, even on a $40 eyepiece! That's like a new car coming with a guarantee that it will drive at least the first 100km with no breakdowns – not very lofty standards! Almost any piece of dirt, dust or grime is sub 1mm… On a premium eyepiece I think it should go without saying that the dust ingress at least should meet the criteria for JIS grade 5, and preferably 6.

I'd never argue with the fact that Pentax eyepieces are the creme de la creme, but the JIS stats you quoted seem alarmingly sub-standard…

i wanted readers to know that i choose equipment because i like how it performs – not because of a brand name. while i admire televue – especially them plossls – i simply believe pentax has them beat in the erfle department. i mean no disrespect to mr. nagler's design, but the pentax eyepieces don't require optical correction to work in some scopes and that's a bonus. there are simply some of us that have difficulty using certain types of eyepieces and finding the pentax was like finding a jewel…

rapideye? if i had realized the eye relief was so incredible, i probably would have went more for the lower powers. it's one thing to "read" that it has 20mm eye relief and it's another to "see" it personally. again, a real bonus in pentax favor.

as an aside, OPT has all pentax eyepieces currently on mark down and move 'em out while supplies last. this means free shipping and discounts aren't in effect, so i was kinda' afraid to mention it, but you guys are friends.

I first looked through a 10.5mm XL a few years back at a star party and just fell in love with it. The nice big eye lens, the adjustable eyecup, the awesome eye relief – wow, it was the most comfortable EP I ever used. And not an optical flaw to be seen – irregardless of what scope it was used in.

When I was upgrading my EP's the next year, I did a lot of side by side comparisons between the Naglers, Radians, and Pentaxes. The Radians were almost as comfortable to use, but the Pentaxes were just a shade sharper. That was it, I was hooked!

Last fall at the MidAtlantic Star Party, we had a 18" Starmaster a 31mm Nagler, a 35mm Panoptic, and my 30mm Pentax – we did a side by side shootout with about 5 different observers using both with and without a parracor. All 3 gave exceptional views, but the Pentax kept coming out on top – again, comfort being a major consideration, but also how distortion free the view was: no pincushion effect, no issues with eye placement (kidney beaning), and no field curvature.

Let me add one more comment to the review – that 20mm is the weakest of the EP's in the lineup. Its got a bit of field curvature. Its more apparent the faster the scope, but its there. The 14mm also has it, but not nearly as noticeable as the 20mm. The rest of the lineup is dead on tight, fieldstop to fieldstop!!!

I'll probably pick up the 40mm next spring (bonus check time) but I don't see the 3.5mm in my future. My 10" scope gives me 250X with my 5mm and I can count on one hand the number of times seeing has been good enough to go much higher. I've still got a decent barlow and I can always barlow my 5mm or 7mm one those great nights. The Pentaxes do barlow well – no issues there.

Thanks again for a nice writeup!!!

I still do not have a delivery schedule for my Kennedy 24" f3.6 (almost 1 1/2 years) so I have not yet ordered the Denk II bino's, have been noodling the eyepiece issue. I have a pair of 19mm Panoptics and have decided on a pair of 13mm Ethos. With my old tired eyes I can use all the eye relief that i can get, the Pans are 13mm and the Ethos are 15mm which is good but the 20mm for the Pentax sounds like a winner. I may have to get a pair of the 20mm Pentax and sell the Pans. I will talk to OPT for their advice.

All this means just fewer beans and hotdogs but the good news is that I'm losing weight on this diet.

Cheers

( I don't feel tooo bad cluttering up the blog with my ramblings tonight, no one else seems to be around)