UPDATE 02.03.2018: We have received a detailed Morpheus 17.5mm Test review from William Paolini. Further reviews, information on the author asf. can be found on the 17.5mm Morpheus prodcut page/a>
UPDATE 15.02.2018: From today until May 15th, 2018 we feature our Morpheus® Family Promo with reduced prices for all eyepieces of the series.
UPDATE January 30th, 2018: 17,5mm Morpheus® 76° eyepieces are now available for sale on our website and will be soon available at all of our dealers.
UPDATE January 24th, 2018: We confirm that we have completed the production of the 17.5mm Morpheus 76 ° eyepieces and will start delivering all pre-orders to dealers in the next few days. On our website, we will also put the eyepiece in stock soon. We thank you for your trust and patience.
For the Morpheus® 17.5 mm we have gone a very long way to end up with a perfect product. It definitely took many more iterations than we had in our planning. The Morpheus® eyepiece design at 76° of field does sound very moderate when compared against the far greater advertised apparent fields (and Cost!!) of those 82°, 92° and 100° eyepieces presently offered. The optical design is at it´s very and absolute limits.
Image of one of the many Morpheus® 17,5mm prototypes - incl. new rubber eyecup with built-in M43 metal thread
However - what we try to do here is really, matching the most natural (and sharp, non-distorted) widest field of view that a human eye can take in without rolling the eyeball around - while making the rim of the field disappear. It is the famous "floating in space effect" that only comes up in the brain when the user has an effortless seeing experience. And being able to enjoy this experience "in Stereo" with a binoviewer is the grand difference to any of the other eyepieces in this league - since their bulky bodies will not allow you to put even a tiny nose in-between them.
Effortless and immersive viewing experience is our motto for the Morpheus® eyepiece line. This is exactly the difference from all those wider field eyepieces. Trying to catch the advertised field on any of those others is all but effortless.
But indeed, to reach the same viewing experience as on all of the shorter Morpheus® focal length eyepieces, the 17.5 mm has taken all of our hardest efforts. As of now we are up to three ED-elements and one Lanthanum element in an eyepiece of 8 lenses altogether - and we still must increase some lens diameters to live up to the "floating in space" design goal.
We apologize for announcing this eyepiece way too early before realizing the problems in production and thus creating a lot of frustration. The development took much more time and money than expected. But definitely will we fill all existing orders at the offered price and we will bring an eyepiece to market that will fulfill the promise we made.
Cross-section of the Morpheus® 17,5 mm - with 3 ED- and one Lanthanum-lens
There is always that same triangle equation: "excellent/fast/affordable - you may choose two". We are very sorry - we were forced to skip the "fast". The eyepiece will come to market at the price we offered, but only when it meets our expectations. We do hesitate to provide the release date since we have already tried the patience of our customers multiple times.
We never took backorders/prepayments for this eyepiece, but didn't realize that our dealers/distributors did just that. We beg everyone for pardon who has been waiting faithfully until now for not keeping the delivery date. Our dealers will return deposits to anyone who will cease to wait - and we will reimburse our dealers in case they will suffer losses due to this.
And really – fulfilling the technical promises as advertised is the hardest task in all production. We will do it and not release the 17.5mm Morpheus® until it fully meets our high expectations.
Thanks for your continued patience.
Your Baader Planetarium Team
[…] Morpheus 17,5mm extreme widefield eyepiece: we do apologize for the long delay since first announcing this eyepiece. The new 17.5mm Morpheus® has been reworked and consists of an eight-lens construction with three ED- and one Lanthanum-lens. It is the most elaborate widefield eyepiece in our company history. The folding winged rubber eyecup has been reworked and will contain a metal thread to firmly fit onto the M43 thread - be it folded up or down. An M43 extension ring will be included to the basic Morpheus® scope of supply. With this 8mm extension the distance of the foldable, as well as the winged rubber eyecup can then be finetuned to optimum height. Also this helps to keep any smartphone holder to firmly clamp over the exiting eye-lens. In addition multiple of these M43- rings may be added to achieve the optimum distance to your camera chip for eyepiece projection. The 17.5mm Morpheus® is expected for spring 2017. UPDATE May 2017: Please read more information about release/backorders of the Morpheus® 17,5mm here: Information on backorders/release of 17.5 mm Morpheus® 76° widefield eyepiece […]
Hello,
any update on the likely release date of the Morpheus 17.5mm eyepiece?
Yes, we are finally happy with the design and the production is now starting. We will post an update as soon as we have more information
Any luck?
Sorry about the delayed answer. Please see our update on the top of the blog post
Any new information about Morpheus 17.5mm?
Sorry about the delayed answer. Please see our update on the top of the blog post
Hello.
In what time will the eyepiece be 17.5mm in sales please?
Days, months, years?
Thank you
Sorry about the delayed answer. Please see our update on the top of the blog post
Any new information about availability for the Morpheus 17.5mm eyepiece?
Sorry about the delayed answer. Please see our update on the top of the blog post
November 16, 2017, still not seeing any info about the eyepiece release or arrival date over in USA, have been looking here for update, nothing since July saying they were in production. Understand these things take time, but curious all the same. Thank you!
Please see our update on the top of the blog post
Sorry about the delayed answer. Please see our update on the top of the blog post
When will the first production run of the Morpheus 17.5mm arrive in the United States?
Thank you.
Dave McMullen
We confirm that we have completed the production of the 17.5mm Morpheus 76 ° eyepieces and will start delivering all pre-orders to dealers in the next few days (it might take up to three weeks until they are available in the US). On our website, we will also put the eyepiece in stock soon. We thank you for your trust and patience.