Hi
,
I received this eyepiece yesterday (see attached image) and want to warn everyone who is thinking about getting one of these. This one is huge and may give you a hard time balancing your 8" or 10" GSO
. As I'm currently moving and my eyepiece case already moved, I could only put a russian TAL Kellner 15mm as a comparison to this beast.
There was no first light yet (snowing....), but I know the predecessor and the lenses are said to be the same.
It's not a zoom eyepiece, but a "Variable". It works by adjusting the gap between the actual ocular and the barlow lens. This means it's not homofocal. On the other hand - it does have a constand fov, "real zooms" are lacking this feature.
It's 84° fov from 5mm to 8mm, suitable for f/5 and --- did I mention it's a beast!? It's 1/3 of a Nagler 31mm in price and a bit more than 1/2 of the Nagler in weight. You definitely get more weight for the buck with this one
Sorry I can't tell much about optical performance of this new series, but I'm just happy it finally arrived and I wondered why I didn't find this eyepiece in this forum. Speers eyepieces are not that common down under?
CS and no, I'm not jealous of McNaught, no, I'm not, never, why should I? NO really, I'm NOT!
Michael