Peg,
Mike (Iceman), Louie (Atalas) and myself spent a couple of hours last Kulnurra observing session, comparing the 13mm Nagler T6, the 14mm Series 4000 Meade UWA and the 14mm Pentax XW. Mike and I also plan to spend another couple of hours this week comparing them on the moon and then the three of us will do another dark sky session on them next last quarter. I don't wish to say too much at this time as Mike will write a detailed review when all the work is completed.
The 3 of them are all outstanding eyepieces and you would be happy if any of them fell out of a tree and found its way into your eyepiece collection. Leave the eye-relief factor out because I can't use either the Meade or the Nagler with my glasses on and have to review both with glasses off. The Meade and the Nagler have a flatter field and sharper stars at the edge of field than the 14mm Pentax XW, due to minor field curvature in the Pentax XW. The Meade and the Nagler T6 are about even in this regard. The Nagler is marginally sharper on axis than the Meade, has higher light transmission and better contrast. The differences between them are very minimal but in repeated A/B comparisons were detectable. The Pentax was sharper on axis than both of them and had higher light transmission, but loses out because of its field curvature. We used the "d" star in HN40, which is a multiple star in M20 (Trifid Nebula)to test this. M20 and HN40 were both Monthly observing challenge objects for July.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.p...69,217,0,0,1,0
We hope to review the Meade 8.8mm UWA, the 9mm Nagler T6 and the 10mm Pentax XW at a later time as the 10mm Pentax XW is a superior eyepiece to the 14mm Pentax XW as it has a perfectly flat field in an F5 scope, whereas the 14mm Pentax XW (and the 20mm Pentax XW) suffer from a little field curvature, which I think is an artifact of preserving 20mm of eye-relief in all focal lengths of the series.
The above having been said, in terms of value for money I think the 14mm Meade UWA for between $200 to $300 on the used market, is clearly the best value going around as it is an outstanding eyepiece.
CS-John B
