ATM planetary nutcases

[Bratislav Curcic <epabcc@epa.ericsson.se>]

Gary,

> ... planetary nutcases

I thought that my aspirations to be the one was rather obvious.
Whether I'm accepted among the ranks, remains to be seen ...
Having spent fortune on short focus eyepieces (I've got 9 below 
12.5mm !) I ought to qualify !
 
I too agree that planetary observations are THE best drive for 
achieving optical perfection.  

>  While a good telescope will form a good image,
> wouldn't you rather *know* you're seeing every detail possible by using an
> excellent telescope? 

It's funny, but to get central sharpness (all we planetary ...ahem! need )
it doesn't take any fancy designs at all. I have used friend's simple doublet
(just an achromatic lens!) and if you ignore everything outside central 5
degrees or so, it works wonderfully ! No ghosts, great sharpnes and phenomenal
contrast. It works much better on his f/15 Maksutov Cassegrain of course,
but that's beside the point. This is his favourite eyepiece now !
At f/6 or so, to get any meaningful field, we need something better. And
that's why I bought these Masuyamas. But even they arean't uniformly sharp,
which is VERY obvious when looking at the Moon. The central sharpness is so 
great that softish edges (still way better than Orthos) are painfully obvious.
But again, our masochistic nature forces us not to enjoy the view, but to
poke around and find imperfections. If that's not the definition of a
nutcase, i don't know what it is ... :-)

Cheers,
Bratislav