View Single Post
  #14  
Old 19-04-2007, 10:08 PM
MortonH's Avatar
MortonH
Deprived of starlight

MortonH is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Sydney
Posts: 3,917
Ron, I wouldn't get too fixated by an 'ultra' wide ep. An apparent field of view of 60 - 70 degrees is plenty. Any more and you can have difficulty seeing the whole field of view at the same time, and you might experience 'blackouts' or 'kidney beaning' if your eye isn't exactly in the right place.

In my own experience, the best wide field eyepieces are the Tele Vue Panoptics and the Pentax XL (now replaced by the XW line). They are around 68-70 degrees and really sharp. Of course, you'll pay close to $500 (or more) for the longer focal lengths.

With the second-hand Bintel (GSO) Dob I bought recently I got a GSO 32mm Wide view. I think it's AFOV is 65 degrees (or close to that). It has some distortion, and with an f/6 scope there is also some coma, but it's such a nice wide view that I don't really notice the problems at the edge of the field.

Based on the websites I've just looked at (for Aussie astro shops) $250 is kind of in 'no mans land'. The cheap ones are much less than $200, and the next step up in quality seems to take you well over $300 (for example, the TMB/Burgess 40mm Paragon at $349).

So for $250, you'd be looking at a decent model second-hand, if you can find one, or maybe a brand new cheapy one and some change.

My other advice would be, if you're likely to be looking for shorter-focal-length eps as well in the near future, to spend less on the wide angles and more on the shorter ones. The higher the magnification, the worse any shortcomings are likely to appear.

Morton