|
I have the 3-6mm Nagler zoom. It's a handy eyepiece, very small and light, and I am very happy with the quality of the views. However, it has a relatively narrow apparent field of view (50 degrees) and relatively short eye relief. Depending on which eyepieces you already own or have used in the past, you may or may not find these factors to be an issue. All of my other eyepieces have at least a 60-degree field and more eye relief. So when I use the zoom, I feel a bit 'restricted'. Bear in mind that I do not own an equatorial mount, so the extra field of view is important for me as planets quickly drift across and out.
In terms of quality, I like it a lot. I use it on my 8" GSO Dob for planetary viewing. Occasionally, I push the magnification up to 300x (with the zoom set at 4mm), but normally the seeing won't allow such a high power. It's more common for me to max out at 240x with my 5mm Radian, which has a 60-degree apparent field and 20mm of eye relief.
If I was buying eyepieces again in this focal length range, I would be tempted to go for the Burgess/TMB 'planetary' eyepieces. They are $149 each from Frontier Optics, which means you can get three of them for less than the price of the 3-6mm zoom.
Morton
|