If you’ve always wanted a Tele Vue eyepiece for high-power viewing, the Delos series is worth considering.
Designed to be a smaller and less expensive version of the Ethos line, the Delos gives Ethos-like performance in a more affordable package.
Here’s what you need to know about the Delos.
Tele Vue 10mm Delos Eyepiece Review
✔️ Best Feature: 72-degree AFOV
❌ Worst Feature: Price
👌 Ideal For: High Magnification, Super Wide FOV, Planets, DSO, Beginners, Intermediates, Experts
- Barrel Size: 1.25”
- Apparent Field of View: 72 degrees
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Eye Relief: 20mm
- Field Stop Diameter: 12.7 mm
My Verdict: In my opinion the Tele Vue Delos eyepiece is every bit worth the price. Exceptional contrast, sharpness, and flat fields are its specialty. With its wide field of view, it’s suitable for both planetary and DSO observations. It’s an eyepiece that is a must-have if you’re sticking to a budget – well, Tele Vue budget.
Who is the Tele Vue 10mm Delos Best Suited to?
The Delos eyepiece is your high-powered champ that allows you to home in on planetary details and intricate features of DSOs.
Since it’s cheaper than an Ethos, it could very well be a beginner’s first high-end eyepiece. But, intermediates and experts will know how to put the Delos to use. Astronomy sketching anyone?
How Does the Tele Vue 10mm Delos Perform?
Time and time again, Tele Vue eyepiece owners will tell you there’s something different about Tele Vue eyepieces. It’s an immersive and relaxing experience to use one of their units and their more affordable Delos eyepiece is no exception.
It provides the same effortless experience that all other Tele Vue eyepieces provide. Is it the long eye relief? The adjustable and locking eyecup? The high-index glass? The exceptional coatings?
How about all of the above?
If there’s an eyepiece to compare it to, it’s the Tele Vue Ethos scaled down. You are not lacking anything with the Delos as it provides exceptional performance worthy of helping you achieve your astronomy goals.
Features & Benefits
72-degree AFOV
In order to bring a less expensive version of an Ethos eyepiece to the market, the AFOV had to be narrowed. However, it’s not a bad thing as it still provides the compactness a sketcher needs to orientate marker stars on paper.
The 10mm eyepiece has an AFOV of 72-degrees. It’s much wider than the 55 or 65-degree eyepieces available, and those inferior ones don’t have Tele Vue quality.
You’ll have plenty of background space to seek out large objects and constellations, and you’ll also have the quality you need to push an eyepiece to its limits to sketch.
Tele Vue Quality
Let’s face it. Tele Vue quality is unparalleled. The Delos provides zero false coloring and neither an image that is yellowish or bluish as it provides neutral color fidelity.
The increased contrast of a black background allows you to make out the fine details of galaxies and nebulae. Seeing the striations in M57 or using averted vision to see the central star is testament to this eyepiece’s optical quality.
Stars across the entire field of view remain pinpoint sharp since the Delos delivers a flat field with no internal scattering or reflections.
“Tele Vue” is usually enough that needs to be said to prove quality.
1.25” Barrel Size
The Delos eyepiece has a 1.25” barrel, so it’s already outfitted from the get-go to fit most focusers already equipped to a telescope. Even with Crayford focusers, they usually have a 1.25” adapter, so the Delos is ready to be attached and used.
DIOPTRX Compatible
You got it. If you wear glasses for astigmatism, you can leave the glasses in your car. With Tele Vue’s DIOPTRX lens accessory, you can tailor it for your vision to make the most of eye relief and an effective field of view.
This is an accessory attachment that connects to the eyepiece. The Delos eyepiece does not come with the DIOPTRX, but it is compatible with it.
With improved light transmission, no glare or reflections, and it doesn’t have the dust, grime, or scratches your glasses lenses likely do, the DIOPTRX accessory may be worth checking out.
Long Eye Relief
With longer eye relief than the Ethos line of eyepieces, the Delos 10mm offers a generous 20 mm of eye relief. It’s long enough for those who still need to use their glasses, but it’s also quite comfortable for the non-glasses wearer. And, for an eyepiece that has a 10mm focal length, this is a fantastic feature to highlight.
Additionally, the quick-adjust eye guard will help you find that sweet spot to see the entire field of view. Once found, lock it in place and you won’t be losing the eye box anytime soon.
Limitations
Price
In all reality, the Tele Vue Delos eyepiece is expensive, but it’s not anywhere near as expensive as some of Tele Vue’s other eyepieces. It has great value, and price is only a limitation here because there is nothing that causes a frown – it’s flawless.
Popular Questions
Many may not know the term Kidney Beaning, but it’s essentially the vignetting or cutting off the entire field of view. This may occur with the Delos due to user error.
What’s new on the Delos is the adjustable eyecup that allows you to lock your position in place. With 20 mm of eye relief, you must find the sweet spot that is the eye box: the distance between your pupil and the lens in which you can make use of the entire exit pupil to see the entire field of view.
The new adjustable height eye guard allows you to find your sweet spot without kidney beaning and lock it in place at any position. This may take some experimentation.
The Delos 10mm eyepiece provides excellent performance for planetary observation and is often compared to some of the best, specialized planetary eyepieces available.
However, the same attributes that makes it a good planetary performer can easily be converted to provide good performance for DSO observation. With a 72-degree of AFOV, you have plenty of FOV to provide contrast with clusters, galaxies, and nebulae.
The Delos 10mm 72-degree eyepiece has a Limited Lifetime Warranty when you register it with Tele Vue.
Conclusion
If you have a budget that is less than $400 and you can only splurge once, in my opinion it should be with the Tele Vue Delos. It has the price tag of a cheaper eyepiece but the performance of a more expensive one.
You’ll be a testifier to its quality when you see how objects retain their shape off-axis as well as on-axis. You’ll see color correction at work across the entire field of view while you spot intricate details at high power that you’ve never been able to see with any other eyepiece. It’s that good – really good.
