My current eyepiece pairs

[+Bino-viewer]

Although i don't consider myself to be an eyepiece hooligan as such.........

i thought i'd have a look at all of mine together. They number 14 ?

 

 

From left in order of focal length :

 

TS Wide angle 26mm illuninated reticule. Used for initial alignement purposes only.

28mm Edmund RKE

24mm Tv Panoptics

19mm       "

16.8mm Orthos

14mm Denkmeiers

13mm Naglers

9mm Nagler.

 

Out of this little lot, the Pan 24s are my favourites, and are, together with the Pan 19s, and hopefully the D14s, my 3 main workhorse eyepiece pairs.

 

I brought the Nagler 9mm on a bit of a whim, used, for a good price, with the idea of pairing it up as a high power pair.

Problem is, i don't find them, like their bigger brother 13s particularly comfortable to observe with.

I will probably sell the 3 of them eventually, and look for some 11mm Naglers if i can source a used pair.

9mm is likely to be too much power anyway. We will see.

 

At the other side is my 28mm, 2 inch TS illuminated reticule.

 

I tried it out the other night for the first time.

The IR is great, and is laser etched. The illuminator, while reportedly poorly designed, works really well.

The eyepiece has a load of eye relief, and is of a wide angle design. Build quality is good.

If i want to increase power for more precise alignment i have Powermate options.

 

As i was only doing alignment tests to see how my new alt-az encoders performed, and i wasn't that interested

in a proper viewing session as such, i decided to leave the reticule in and use it on its own, cyclops style.

 

Heres where i was taken aback.......

 

COMA. My word, i never realised what it was all about until i looked through this eyepiece.

It was pretty dire to be honest ; the outer third of the fov had those unpleasant comet shaped stars.

Even in an F4 Dob, with my Tele-vues its never been an issue. They are that well corrected. I never needed the Paracorr at all.

Also the binoviewers corrector lenses help remove it as well.

But this was Coma on a big scale and i'd not seen it before.

Of course, the IR eyepiece is not about edge of field performance, but rather, as designed, as a premium reticule eyepiece.

In that regard, it performs very well indeed. It's a keeper.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Bino-viewer

[philjay]

An interesting collection you have there. Im starting to plot further ep pairings for my bins now ?

There are many eyepieces out there claiming wide fov but like your reticule one the fov unaffected by coma is much less than the manufacturers state. All they do is open up the field stops as much as they can and claim wide field whereas the useable field is far less. I had some TMB planetary clones like this, very poor on lunar.

[+Bino-viewer]

If i had to sell them all but one pair, i would, without hestitation keep the 24mm Panoptics.

I really think this eyepiece is as good as it gets for rich field, wide angle 2 eyed viewing.

 

Every visual observer should have one in their case. Or better, two.

Tele-vues best selling eyepiece for a reason.......