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Eye relief


Lorraine Eason

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Has anyone any further thoughts / suggestions on the subject....? I do wonder if in part my problem during my attempt at observing on NYE was due to struggling with eye relief as a glasses wearer.  I  had what can be best described as similar issues this afternoon whilst out doing a bit of plinking; getting a clear view through the scope was a nightmare as I was continually shifting my head at one point to get a decent view and  found that at least in this instance, I needed quite long eye relief.  If the same logic applies to my telescope....🤔 

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I started out adamant that I would keep my glasses on, and even got Long Eye Relief eyepieces to suit.  But I made two changes - having a pair of distance-only prescription glasses for use with my scope, and a neck chain to hang them on.  I now remove my glasses most of the time, and it makes life much easier and the scope's performance much more predictable.

Don't forget that Eye Relief numbers are from the outermost lens glass to your eye, not from the rubber eyecup to your eye.  If the lens is well recessed, it uses up precious eye relief distance.

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I have found that for both looking through an eyepiece or a scope sight I get the best results by not wearing my glasses. This can be annoying for anyone (pre virus) that followed me and had to adjust focus again. However, as Bryan mentioned, just those few millimeters make all the difference and it makes it much more comfortable and gives a wider field of view. 

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I agree with both of the above, I wear a glasses cord around my neck and view without glasses..

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The beauty of telescopes is that you can adjust focus quite a lot thus one is able to compensate for different eyesight prescriptions so wearing glasses for observing is not necessary. 

I wear specs but never use them at the tekescope. It can be a bit of a faff in the dark as I need glasses for reading so I will wear glasses for reading the star atlas or computer, I will put them down and lose them in the dark. I must invest in a lanyard 🙂

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5 hours ago, RonC said:

I agree with both of the above, I wear a glasses cord around my neck and view without glasses..

Me too. I have tried observing with my glasses on but I couldn't get on with it. 

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Same here.

I went into the opticians before xmas and asked them for a couple of granny straps(they don't stand up to the strain a 50 kg dobermonsters paw puts on them)) and thery knew exactly what I meant.🤣

Edited by Ibbo
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In my experience OEM's exaggerate (pork pie factory) about eye relief lengths. I'm talking about YOU Explore Scientific!!

 

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ES are infamous for some of their measurement claims. Maybe the 13mm they claim for this EP is correct depending how you calculate it. Around 12~14mm is my preferred eye relief. This feels much tighter than 13mm though. As a consequence I only like it for scopes with fast focal ratios. Even then my eyeball often feels like it's actually part of the housing lol.

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