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I was very surprised also. I’m not suggesting the Baader zoom is a better eyepiece than the Pan 24. I would remove the Pan from the equation altogether if that was the case. It just seems, during the very limited time I’ve used them both with the little Mak 127 (which is only twice, for very short periods under far from ideal conditions) that the zoom was showing higher contrast views, particularly on M42 which was the predominant target i was looking at during one of these sessions. I was also surprised that the combination of the little Mak with the zoom immediately put up a good display of the E and F components of the Trapezium.
I have a lot of quality eyepieces, including all Ethos’, all Radian’s, several Naglers (including the zoom), all but one or two Vixen LV’s plus others I can’t think of at the moment, so i’m in no way a zoom fanatic. I was just quite pleasantly surprised by the image quality shown in the Mk4 zoom. I bought it more so out of curiosity and for convenience, so it was a nice surprise to see that it didn’t appear to be showing compromised views when I first looked through it. I must stress though, I’ve only used it in the one scope (which was really the scope I purchased it for anyhow), so the jury is still well and truly out as to whether it stands its own against all other EP’s in differently scopes under differing conditions on differing targets. Either way, I’m certainly not going to be getting rid of my fixed FL EP’s.
Oh, and I’ve never looked through a Pentax zoom. I’m confident, based on every report I’ve read on them, that they would absolutely be superior to the Baader zoom. Must try one some time.
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