Televue 3-6mm Zoom or 3.5 Nag ?

Hi,

Just bought a new TV 85 and am getting first eyepieces so I call Televue Tech support for guidance...I need a high power lens for planetary and lunar viewing and I tell the tech that I read good things about Televue 3-6mm Zoom and was thinking about that...he asks me what kind of mount I have and I tell him Alt-az....he says that Zoom has too narrow a field and I will be better off with a Nag 3.5 because I will be able to view object longer with that eyepiece. Well, it makes sense to me and I appreciated the advice though I have heard such great things about the 3-6mm Zoom....I really only want to buy one of these ONCE....lol....any thought ? Thanks.

I have a TV-85 on an Alt-Az and I also have the 3-6 Nagler zoom. While it does have a narrower FOV than the 3.5 Nagler (50 deg vs 82), I find it very useful.

The main advantage is that you have many power chioces with the zoom eyepiece ... 100x-200x ... so you can use it in all sorts of seeing conditions and on many different objects. With the 3.5 Nagler, you're pretty much locked into 171x ... which really needs good seeing to appreciate. I'd get the zoom if I were you.

Do you wear glasses? The eye reief on the 3-6 zoom is significantly tighter than on the nagler T6's. If yuo don't wear glasses you could try the zoom, but if you do that will make the useable field even narrower, and I would definitely go for the 3.5 T6.

Jarad

I own a Nagler zoom and use it on a TV 102 on a Gibraltar mount. One point in it's favor you should consider is that if you lose your target object, you merely need to zoom down to reaquire it. Once it's centered, zoom back up. I love how convenient this is.