WOW! This puter screen is so bright! Where's my sunnies, oh yeh I don't have any I live in Melbourne...
Righty-o, I've had my first hour with my new 35mm toy in dark (dark blue) moon lit skies. The eyerelief is stated as 24mm, I think it's more like 20mm but it's still a bit too long for me, I like to mash my face against the eyecup to keep my head steady. Having said that, the 35mm seems to be a bit more forgiving of my head placement than the 22mm. But because I can rest my head on the 22mm panoptic's eyecup my head doesn't drift around much anyway, so it's all swings and roundabouts (horses for courses).
The star image looks exactly the same right up against the field stop as it does in the center of the FOV. I spent a while comparing the 22mm and 35mm to see if there was any difference in sharpness, but couldn't detect any. Each time a I thought one was sharper I switched over and the other one was just as sharp.
The 35mm seems a lot brighter though.
There was a big difference when looking at the Pleiades. In the 22mm pano I could fit about 2 Pleiades widths across the FOV (about 3 degrees). They were framed quite nicely. In the 35mm I could fit about 4 Pleiades widths (5 degrees) and they looked spectacular!
There is not much else around them but that extra space made them look so much more important. I could clearly see that they were a real star cluster, not just a bunch of stars scattered around the FOV. They really did look different. Much more enjoyable to look at.
The good news is I no longer have to worry about what widefield EP I should buy next. I'm quite happy as I think I have two good ones, that like short F ratio scopes. Now all I have to stress about is the 15 to 6mm range.
