Quote:
Originally posted by frogman
Letter to HELIX ... Just sent ill post their reply
Looking at this one
ANTARES W70
W70 8.6mm $55.95
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Anthony,
Thats a very good eyepiece but may not work that well in your F5 scope, the edges may be quite soft and you could also get a bit of field curvature as well as EOF astigmatism.
When you own a fast scope < about F6 or so you really only have 2 options if you want good edge performance with eyepieces:-
1) Buy premium widefield eyepieces that give a wide flat field and work in fast scopes. ie. Naglers, Panoptics, TV Radians, Pentax XW and Vixen Lanthanum Superwides, these all cost plenty of dosh.
2) If you are working to a budget buy high quality simple designs like UO orthoscopics, TV Plossls, Orion Ultrascopics, Celestron Ultimas and the Antares Elite Plossls (sold by Helix). The downside of these eyepieces is that they offer a narrower FOV and in short focal lengths, shorter eye-relief, however the image quality in a fast scope will be clealry superior to a budget widefield eyepiece and on a par with any premium eyepiece. The Antares Elite Plossls are exactly the same eyepiece as the Celestron Ultimas and Orion Ultrascopics, they are a 5 element Masuyama design, made in Japan and offer superb image quality.
I am not trying to put a dampener on your selection as its a very nice eyepiece but make you aware of a potential issue. The upside of course is that if it doesn't work well in your scope we can all use it in Rod's, Wayne's and Houghy's SCT's and Louie's Tak
CS-John B