This is my new homebuilt scope. The eyepiece ( 13mm Nagler ) was $450 . The objective lens was a KMart brand Olympus bayonet 28mm camera lens bought new for $29 in 1985. The field is very sharp. The magnification is about 2X and the exit pupil I have measured with a caliper is about 5mm which means clear aperture is 10mm. The apparent field is 80 degrees and the true field is 40 degree.
Its awesome how much you an see in the night sky with minumum aperture and wide field . I think the fact that you can focus, thereby solving the problem of night time Myopia which most people suffer from, is a big factor. Numerous star clusters and wide doubles are resolving and Eta Carinae has the classic shape. And I can often see many different classes of deep sky object in the one view.I'm taking in more of the Milky Way under sharp resolution than ever before . I can see the whole of Scorpius and more at once.
Some times you've got to step back from the big scopes and remember that they narrow down your field of view greatly, and give you a good dose of train spotter ' fever, and you can forget the bigger picture. Fellow binocular enthusiast Paul Shopis has a binocular version in the pipeline
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