REVIEW OF THE NEW BAADER MORPHEUS 12.5 MM 76° EYEPIECE

[Doc]

 

 

 

 

 

REVIEW OF THE BAADER MORPHEUS 12.5MM 76° EYEPIECE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For this review I will be using the following telescope: a Skywatcher 120ED Esprit which has a focal length of 840mm and a focal ratio of F7. I'm comparing the Baader Morpheus 12.5mm 76° to the following eyepieces:

 

 

 

 

 

• Televue Delos 10mm
• Televue Delos 12mm
• Televue Delos 14mm
• University Optics 12.5mm Ortho

 

 

 

PACKAGING

 

 

 

 

 

The packaging was well presented and sturdy.  The eyepiece was packaged in a box with a foam insert protecting it.  The foam can be removed and below the foam you can house the holster, eye cap, and the additional winged eye shield. There were no instructions supplied in the box with the eyepiece sent to me.

 

 

 

 

 

FEEL AND QUALITY OF EYEPIECE

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing that struck me when I opened the box was the Baader Morpheus looked like a amalgamation between the Docter UWA 12.5mm eyepiece and the Televue Delos range.  I would love to compare the Baader Morpheus against the Docter UWA 12.5mm as they are the same focal lengths, but unfortunately do not have access to a Docter UWA eyepiece.  However, I do have various eyepieces from the Televue Delos range so will be using them instead. The eyepiece itself feels very light and a quick look at the specification gave the weight as 345g. The eyepiece comes with a M43 thread and this is accessible by removing the eye shield.  I did notice that the eye shield does come adrift pretty easy when removing the eye cap, this occurred at least 4 times during the first night of observing and I finally didn't bother putting the eye cap back on.

 

 

 

 

 

The eye guard felt a little cheap and fell off a few times during my observations.   The quality could have been better.

 

 

 

 

 

The engraved writing adorning the eyepiece is meant to glow in the dark, but either this was very subtle and I did not recognise it, or this was not working on my version of the eyepiece.

 

 

 

 

 

BARREL DESIGN AND DRAW TUBE FIT

 

 

 

 

 

Baader has designed a unique system for the barrel.  They call them safety kerfs, instead of safety undercuts which most eyepieces now have. They have designed a serrated barrel and it feels tactile and comfortable in the hand. I could imagine these working very well and it's a great design feature that adds style to the eyepiece. When I placed the eyepiece into the focuser of my Skywatcher 120ED Esprit Triplet it was not a perfect fit. I could tell the difference between this and the Televue Delos which I own.  The Delos are sucked in and you can feel the air being displaced, the Baader Morpheus was a much looser fit.

 

 

 

 

 

LENS AND EYE RELIEF

 

 

 

 

 

Another thing that I liked about the Baader Morpheus was the huge eye lens.  I like this feature in eyepieces and this one looks very similar to the Televue Delos eye lens.  The coatings had a purple tinge when held up to the light. The eye relief felt very good and I estimate it being very similar to the Televue Delos range of 20mm. What I did not like was there was no way as far as I could tell to increase or decrease the amount of eye relief for the individual user.  That said, I never had any issues regarding eye placement and thus did not suffer any form of kidney beaning.

 

 

 

 

 

FIELD STOP

 

 

 

 

 

While observing the sun, I decided to check the field stop of the Baader Morpheus and placed the sun behind the field stop.   While doing this, I could detect that the Morpheus eyepiece field stop appeared blurred and had a ghosting on the edge.  It was also not an inky black colour and did not have any sharpness to it.  When I placed the Televue Delos 12mm into the focuser, I could tell straight away the difference in colour and sharpness.  The field stop in the Delos appeared focused with no blurring at all, and looked inky black and sharp.

 

 

I then placed in the University Optics 12.5mm and while not as good as the Delos, the ortho was sharper and darker then the Baader Morpheus. I checked and double-checked around the whole 360° circumference of the field stop and the results were the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCATTER

 

 

 

While observing Saturn and Vega, I did notice that the lack of light scatter in both the Morpheus and Delos eyepieces is excellent.  The way I tested this was by placing Vega just outside the eyepiece field of view and watching how much lighter the darkness of the background became. The Delos was excellent and I detected no light scatter at all.  The Baader Morpheus was very good to excellent and only a very little touch of light scatter was detected. The sky around Saturn appeared darker in the Televue Delos as well, but the view with the Morpheus was still very pleasing and in my opinion this was a minor detail.

 

 

 

COLOUR AND CONTRAST

 

 

 

All high end eyepieces need good multi coatings and the Morpheus is no exception.  Wth it's phantom coatings, it delivered really nice neutral looking colour while observing star clusters and double stars. When I compared the Baader Morpheus 12.5mm and the Televue Delos 12mm on Alberio, the stars appeared the same colours in both eyepieces, and to be honest I couldn't really detect which one had the better colour definition. The colour and contrast in star clusters was also very good, with individual stars taking on reds and blues. Both the Televue and Baader were excellent on globular clusters, with the Baader Morpheus able to resolve many of the clusters into individual stars.  When observing the limb of the moon, the contrast was excellent against the blackness of the sky.  The transmission is superb in the Baader Morpheus.  This showed especially while comparing sun spots.  There were two extremely faint sun spots, so small it was hard to pick them up, but I could see them in both eyepieces, which I thought was a very good test.

 

 

 

FIELD CURVATURE

 

 

 

Both the Baader Morpheus and the Televue Delos were excellent on axis.  The images in the centre of the field of view were sharp and clear with no focus problems at all. While observing, I found by placing Saturn towards the outer edge of the field stop in the Baader Morpheus, the image of Saturn appeared to blur slightly. This did not occur with the Delos which by all accounts has a completely flat field. To correct this, I had to add more in-focus to get the image back in focus.  I also noticed this on star fields especially on the Double Cluster where the field edge was better defined in the Delos compared to the Morpheus. Once I knew this aberration was present, I detected it in lots of different scenarios. It showed up when I let Vega drift from the centre to the edge.  Vega was very sharp and looked like a pin point of light in the centre, but by the time it had drifted to about 10% off the edge I could detect the stars had elongated slightly.  Another area was sunspots.   Once again, they were very sharp in the centre of the field of view and a little out of focus at the edge.  I would like to point out that this is not too bad and in my opinion compared to the older Baader Hyperions, the Morpheus is a vast improvement in that area.

 

 

 

CHROMATIC ABERRATIONS

 

 

 

When I placed the moon on the edge of the field stop, I could detect a blue/purple edge on the moon's limb.  It was very small but I was a little surprised considering the test scope is a triplet and triplets are not meant to show chromatic aberrations.  This appeared in both the Baader Morpheus and the Televue Delos.  When looking at the moon, view is fantastic in both eyepieces with no chromatic aberration, it's only if you place the limb directly at the very edge of the field stop, then you get chromatic aberrations.

 

 

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

 

 

I was honoured to be asked to do the first review of this eyepiece and I wasn't quite sure what to expect having owned the Baader Hyperions in the past. Well my initial feelings were very favourable.  The design is sleek, feels very tactile and even though it's light in comparison to some other makes, it feels very well made. Cosmetically the main fault which lets it down in my opinion is the quality of both eye cups.  In my opinion, they lack the feel of more expensive brands.  The rubber feels flimsy and could be better made out of superior materials.  Maybe there should be an extending eye cup to deliver better eye relief for the individual user and this would also prevent light from entering the eye while observing.

 

 

 

I love the safety kerfs, they feel and work very well.  I have never seen the like on any eyepiece before and they are truly a unique feature. The illuminated writing on the barrel didn't really work, either that or I had a pre production item and this feature had not been implemented.

 

 

 

Visually I compared the Baader Morpheus 12.5mm to a Televue Delos 12mm.  There are two reasons for this.  Firstly, they are of similar focal lengths and secondly there have been many reviews written about the Televue Delos and everyone elevates the eyepiece to the top tier.  In other words it's the eyepiece to beat.

 

 

 

In the following categories: colour, contrast, transmission, sharpness, and scatter, I place them pretty much even.  Maybe there was a slight advantage in the scatter department to the Delos, but I was impressed that the Baader Morpheus was as good as this.

 

 

 

What lets the Baader Morpheus down is the field stop.  The comparison between the two eyepieces is really evident when the field stop is examined. It is not sharp and finely defined like the Televue Delos field stop is. It is not inky black and when the sun is placed behind the field stop, you can see a double image and a fuzzy field stop.

 

 

 

I also discovered by placing the moon very near to the field stop, that chromatic aberrations can be seen.  These appeared as a blue tinge on the limb of the moon. I was surprised to see this in a triplet refractor but I'm certain that because it appeared in both the Baader Morpheus and the Televue Delos that this is more of a refractor problem then an eyepiece one.

 

 

 

Field curvature is another problem that I encountered. On axis this eyepiece is excellent, very sharp, lovely colours and basically a joy to use, but place an object such as Saturn near to the field stop and the object is slightly out of focus.  You need in-focus to get the object sharp again. This happened on a range of objects including star fields and sun spots.

 

 

 

It's not a huge problem as many eyepieces have this flaw and to me it would not put me off buying this eyepiece  It's a small problem in an otherwise fantastic product. 

 

 

 

The Baader Morpheus eyepieces are priced extremely competitively, and are up there amongst the best. I have really enjoyed checking out the wonderful new 12.5mm Morpheus and can thoroughly recommend it.

 

 

 

I would like to add that I do not work or have any affiliation to Baader Planetarium or any competitor. I am an amateur astronomer with a passion in this hobby and these are my own personal observations and opinions.

 

 

 

Michael Bird (Doc)

 

East Midlands Stargazers

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Daz Type-R

[Tweedledee]

Absolutely brilliant review, and the very first on the planet!

[Sheila]

yup it sure is  Well done Mick

[Smithysteve]

An excellent much awaited revue Mick!

I hung on every word... And I will read it again! ðŸ‘

Comparing the Morpheus with the Delos was a brilliant move. 👌

Well done!

[+Bino-viewer]

Thanks for posting Mick.

 

Really enjoyed reading your review 

[BAZ]

An excellent review there Mick, thoughtfully carried out and a detailed report. I would be interested to see one of these. It's a shame about the eye cups, I have the Baader Zoom, and they are poor on this as well, just cheap plastic. I am sure that buyers would fork out the few quid more that improving these would cost, just look how well the BST Starguiders eye cup design works on such a budget eyepiece.

[Daz Type-R]

Nice report Mick, very detailed and informative.

 

[M.]

Interesting read Mick.

£175 from FLO, but you do get a cool looking pouch and foam lined box at least

[Doc]

The box is not foam lined it has a foam insert with a cut out of the shape of the eyepiece. I think the holster is a bit of a gimmick, imagine if you had three of these eyepieces would you keep them all in holsters.

[Tweedledee]

I think the holster is a bit of a gimmick, imagine if you had three of these eyepieces would you keep them all in holsters.

Only if you want to look real cool...

 

 

[M.]

Will go a treat with my Meade t-shirt and celestron cap haha

[Doc]

Imagine if you had all five on a belt, you would look like a gun slinger 

[M.]

Imagine if you had all five on a belt, you would look like a gun slinger 

The ladies will go wild, you will need to beat them off 

Edited July 29, 2015 by M__

[Sheila]

The ladies will go wild, you will need to beat them off 

 

take more than a posh belt

[M.]

Is this on anyone's shopping list then?