Quote:
|
Originally Posted by iceman
Ok.. it's getting close to decision time..
and then premium widefield (probably overpriced for a planetary EP)
- Pentax 7mm XW
- Nagler 7mm T6
- Vixen 7mm LVW
For the price of a premium widefield, I could get 2 UO HD orthos (5mm and 7mm), and probably a 2x barlow as well! So it'd take some convincing for me to rank a premium widefield higher.
Your thoughts and experiences on any of the eyepieces above? Feel free to throw anything else into the equation.
My budget is around $300, which pretty much rules out the premiums, but if I determine (through my own viewing at IISAC) that a premium is soooo much better than an Ortho or other cheaper plossl then I'll just save up a bit longer to extend the budget.
Thanks
|
Mike,
The premium widefields gain you absolutely nothing in image quality. What your paying for is a wide flat field of view when used in combination with a fast f-ratio telescope. Actually from my limited comparisons, I think the UO HD orthos will outperfom the Nagler T6's and Vixen LVW's as a planetary eyepiece. There is little between the Pentax XW's and UO HD orthos in terms of an axis performance. To gain better planetary performance than the 5 element Japanese Plossls (Masuyama), TV Plossls, Tak LE, UO HD orthos, Vixen LV etc, which are all superb, you really need to go to the more expensive premium specialist planetary eyepieces like TMB Monocentrics, Zeiss orthoscopics, Brandon Orthoscopics and Clave Plossls. I haven't used the TMB monos, but I have used the other 3 and they are superb, but are all expensive and a lot more money for a small performance gain.
Try out my HD orthos again at Lostock but the big thing in their favour is they are only about $125 each and you could buy the 5mm, 6mm and 7mm for less than $400. This gives you a bit more flexibity in marginal seeing conditions, having 3 options as opposed to 2.
CS-John B