Nagler 3-6mm zoom

[Lismore Bloke (Paul)]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this eyepiece. I am looking for a couple to fill out the short end of the range. Currently I have 22, 17 and 12 t4 and 9 and 7mm t6. The 3.5 and 5mm t6 would be natural progressions, but is the zoom is worth considering, even though the FOV is small?

[astro744]

Absolutely wonderful eyepiece with infinite zoom range between 3 and 6mm and click stops every 1mm. The 2-4 Nagler zoom has click stops every 0.5mm. If you have a 3 or 4" APO I think they are essential to dial in just the right magnification for the object and the conditions. The apparent field of view and focus remains fixed throught the zoom range too.

If you have a Dob with over a metre focal length then a wider AFOV eyepiece may be better unless you have an EQ tracking or SevoCat otherwise the object will drift too quickly out of view.

The eye relief is 10mm and a bit too short for eyeglass wearers but more than enough for those that do not wear glasses. In fact 10mm is luxury compared to Ortho or Plossl designs of the same focal length. Note you can get 3 Radians for about the same cost now as an alternative but the zoom will still give you a wider range.

[goober (Doug)]

Originally Posted by Lismore Bloke

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this eyepiece. I am looking for a couple to fill out the short end of the range. Currently I have 22, 17 and 12 t4 and 9 and 7mm t6. The 3.5 and 5mm t6 would be natural progressions, but is the zoom is worth considering, even though the FOV is small?

I have one and use it in my refractor for tight double splits - brilliant for that as you don't have a swap out the eyepiece at high magnification (on an alt-az push to mount). FOV is tighter than my other nags, but not too bad. It does tend to get a bit gunky with the tight eye relief, but we all clean our eyepieces, right?