[Wavytone]

In case anyone is interested, now that I have some LV's (25,10,5mm) and SLV's (25, 12, 6,4mm) and one SSW (14mm) and a chance to try them on some bright stars, Mars and the Moon, a few quick remarks.

The scopes I'm using are an APM 70mm f/6.7 quadruplet flat-field APO, and APM 130mm f/7 triplet APO.

In both the LV's are good but not perfect - all 3 appear to have a tad of chromatic error off-axis, showing a hint of yellow around the limb of the first quarter moon. Bright stars off-axis likewise show a hint. I'll have to wait for a star party to check this in a newtonian but I'm fairly sure this is not from the APO objectives.

In case you're wondering, a few seconds use shows the SLV's are not just the LV optics in a new barrel. Although the apparent field of the SLV's is similar (around 50 degrees) they are distinctly superior to the LV's showing perfect colour correction and tack sharp images to the field stop. I was happily watching mars float past edge to edge at 225X in the 130mm scope, and same in the 70mm. While I was at first skeptical about the eyecup on the SLV's it turns out to be very comfortable - much more so than the rubber cup on the LV's.

The coatings in the SLV and SSW are also excellent, handling the first-quarter moon and bright stars perfectly without ghosting or flaring, and distinctly better contrast than the LV's.

The SSW 14mm is also extremely well corrected like the SLV's. With a claimed 83 degree apparent FoV putting it up against various other eyepieces will make an interesting comparison later when i have a chance to try these on the same scopes.

In short the SLV and SSW eyepieces are a good match for refractors or SCT's and are midrange cost-wise (significantly less than Televue equivalents).However I would hesitate to recommend them to users of fast newtonians (under f/5) as the field curvature may not match these scopes.

Might get round to a more extensive comparison when i have time to make it to a star party.