13mm Naglers.....first impressions

[+Bino-viewer]

Almost a year ago now, i purchased my first 'Bino-viewing' eyepieces - the Televue 19mm Panoptics.

They've very quickly become the favourite eyepieces in my collection.

They are usually the first eyepieces i use at the start of a session, and quite often they're the last.

 

They're just perfect for bino-viewing, lightweight, absolutely tack sharp, with good eye relief, and an ideal 68* fov. Definitely keepers.

 

Plenty of power for my C8, but with my refractor i felt i could do with a little more power on those (rare) nights of good seeing.

Something in the 12 - 15 mm range. Last night (Sun 19 Jan) was one of those nights....

 

So, about a month ago i purchased a pair of Tv 13mm Naglers from Widescreen Centre in London. (10% sale)

 

I had intended to have a session with the C8 last night, to see if i could get it collimated, with the 'Bobs knobs'.

I left it outside (in its case which was open) for around 2 hours. 

After setting up, i quickly realised all was not well. The star image i got (in mono view) was nothing like i'd seen before.

Either my initial indoor collimation was a county mile out (probable) or the corrector plate had dewed up. (or both)

It wasn't easy to tell in the dark, but i think dew was the problem. I quickly packed the C8 away feeling somewhat fed up.

 

Plan B was to set up my refractor and have a quick session with the new N13's

 

I only gave the frac 10 mins to cool down and wasn't expecting much.

My mount wasn't even powered up. I often just leave it in alt-az if i'm having a quick session, balanced with the RA & Dec clutches released

so i can dart quickly around the sky, checking out the 'usual suspects'.

 

Jupiter was nice and high so i homed in on it with the bino and 19Pans.

The seeing looked good for once, Jupiter looked amazing.

I took the diagonal off the bino in order to insert my 2.6x GPC

This took the magnification up to 150-200x approx. But the views of Jupiter were just superb. Rock steady, loads of detail, with the 'Great Red Spot'

easily visible. I've never seen it look better.

 

Time to try the new N13's.....

This upped the magnification up in to the 200-250x range. 

Once i'd adapted to them, as i'll explain below, i spent a good half hour just gazing at this amazing planet. Again, never seen the Red Spot look so bright,

the disk of Jupiter was huge, with plenty of detail, and the 4 moons actually looked non-stelar, with Ganymede in particular showing a tiny disc.

The wide 82* field was a bonus at high power, and i soon got used to nudging the mount to reposition the planet.

I spent a good 3 hours altogether observing the moon ( check out my lunar image ), also M42, M45 and a few others.

A really enjoyable night of observing, in pretty good seeing conditions i thought. 

 

SO.......what do i think of the N13s ?

 

Well, i have to say i prefer my 19Pans.

The Pans are simply more comfortable to observe with bino-viewers, and viewing comfort is very much the name of the game in my opinion.

They have better eye relief then the N13s and are easy to 'merge' images. The 68* fov hits the sweetspot.

 

As for the 13's ?  It took me a while to get used to them. Thats not a fault as such, its just i felt they were a little trickier to use.

I just need to keep using them and adapt to them. The eye relief is a little short for my liking, but its ok. I found i needed to back off a little, to let the images merge. The eyecups are not as nice as the Pans, and i kept getting distracting reflections from other light sources in the image.

I also had a little (of what seemed to be) black-outing to contend with.

Maybe though, i think its just a matter of me adapting. Bino-viewing takes time to get used to.

The 82* field is ok, but its a bit too big when using both eyes. Its a bit like your first view through a 100* Ethos. You need to literally get your eyeball close in and have a look around like looking through a port-hole. This isn't needed with bino-viewing. As i said 68* hits the sweet spot.

But when viewing at high magnification, a wide fov is nice to have.

 

I would have preferred it if Televue had made a Panoptic in the 12-15mm range. I believe they used to make a 15mm at one time, but don't know why they discontinued them ??

All in all though, a good first light with the new 13Nags. They are nice and compact and promise much.

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing Mars & Saturn with them later this year 

 

My eyepieces by rob.0919, on Flickr

 

 

[BAZ]

Great write up Rob. It does go to show how different eyepieces suit different people, and also how getting used to them is important.

I reckon Mars would be a great test for them.

[+RonC]

Tried the Nagler's myself but prefer the Radion's, due simply to the extra eye relief! At my age that is important !!

[Guest Kheldar]

I would have preferred it if Televue had made a Panoptic in the 12-15mm range. I believe they used to make a 15mm at one time, but don't know why they discontinued them ??

 

If memory serves the 15mm had terrible eye relief, coma and lousy contrast - it was the oddball in the range and dumped

 

The 22mm also went the same way as the 24mm was better in almost every regard

[+Bino-viewer]

I believe the 24mm Panoptic is Televue's best selling eyepiece.

They've been on my radar a while, but are not that well suited to the Baader Maxbright as they vignette badly.