Re: [APML] Up-Scale eyepieces

My favorite medium-focal length eyepiece is the Meade 14mm UWA. It has a Nagler-like FOV, is very sharp, and has comfortable eye relief. My most used eyepiece is a 35mm Panoptic, which is very nice. The 31 and 22 mm Naglers are impressive, but they're not enough of an improvement over the Panoptics to make me spend the extra money for them. I use the 9mm Nagler a lot for observing galaxies and globulars. For high-power work, I've been impressed with the Radians. Some people find the Instadjust eyecups on the Radians to be a bit awkward, but I like them. The 19mm Panoptics are my favorite eyepieces for my BinoVue.
--
Alson Wong
Riverside Astronomical Society
http://www.rivastro.org/
Visit my Web page at <http://home.earthlink.net/~alsonwong/index.htm>

----- Original Message -----

From: GLENN SHAW

To: astro-photo@seds.org

Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 12:45 AM

Subject: [APML] Up-Scale eyepieces

Though this is a list on astrophotography, we have to frame up our pictures and glimpse the telescopic sky scene before putting in the inevitable CCD autoguider! I suspect that these moments of looking at the stars while out trying to photograph the stars are among the most pleasurable of all for us in this hobby. In this regard, what eyepieces serve the best?

In particular, on this question, one can spend quite a lot on quality occulars. At the recommendation of Jon Kolb I purchased a Takahashi 5 mm focal length occular with LED-illuminated reticle for guiding purposes. This was expensive!! But it's worth it: the occular has excellent resulution to the edge of the field, good eye relief and fine mechanical quality throughout, especially in the engraving of the reticle.

Nagler-type eyepieces are judged to be good quality, so I hear, and those that have attempted to copy Nagler eyepieces have sometimes fallen on their faces, so I hear from the grapevine.

Do any of you have eyepieces that you are especially fond of?

Glenn Shaw