So I got bored and hooked up my 80mm F/7 refractor to my G8N rig with a home made side by side plate. My TAL 24mm UWA gave good images in both scopes, but I needed a dedicated "finder" eyepiece for the little refractor. Thanks to our wonderful (sometimes brutal) capitalist economy, I found myself the new owner of a Chinese clone of the classic 30mm Widescan for $80 shipped.
Here is how it compared to the TAL in the two scopes:
In the 80mm f/7 achromatic refractor, stars were sharper over the full field of view, still a little soft at the very edge but a great effect for showing 4 degrees true field at 19x. The TAL 24mm has a similar effect with slightly less true field, but spike shaped stars toward the edge unlike the Owl 30mm 80*. The spikes were more distracting than the mild astigmatic diamonds seen in the OWL 30mm. The Owl 30mm seemed the better of the two in this scope, and as a bonus it has no amber tone like the TAL.
In the G8n, thankfully the situation was reversed: the more sophisticated TAL handled the weird optical configuration of the Brixner style hybrid Newtonian found in this discontinued Celestron sleeper much better than the Owl 30. In this scope, the Owl shows quite a bit of field curvature, astigmatism, and coma. The TAL hardly shows any astigmatism except for at the very edge, with less curvature but the same coma. I even tried a 27 Panoptic in this scope and preferred the TAL 24 because it almost seems to have some weird coma compensating effect: the coma was not as obvious in the TAL vs. the Panoptic despite the eyepieces having nearly the same true field. Anyhow, the TAL 24 gives a great presentation of 2 degrees field of view and really compliments the 4 degrees seen in the 80mm f/7 with the Owl 30.
Summary: In my fun test with the Knight Owl 30mm 80*, TAL 24mm UWA, and even a 27 Panoptic, the combination of using the Owl in the 80mm f/7 refractor as a 19x80 finder and the TAL 24 in the G8n as a low power star cluster viewer gives a great visual effect. The TAL 24 seems better suited for fast newtonians than the Owl, and even worked better than a 27 panoptic in this particular scope, to my eye.
Have a great day!
Here is how it compared to the TAL in the two scopes:
In the 80mm f/7 achromatic refractor, stars were sharper over the full field of view, still a little soft at the very edge but a great effect for showing 4 degrees true field at 19x. The TAL 24mm has a similar effect with slightly less true field, but spike shaped stars toward the edge unlike the Owl 30mm 80*. The spikes were more distracting than the mild astigmatic diamonds seen in the OWL 30mm. The Owl 30mm seemed the better of the two in this scope, and as a bonus it has no amber tone like the TAL.
In the G8n, thankfully the situation was reversed: the more sophisticated TAL handled the weird optical configuration of the Brixner style hybrid Newtonian found in this discontinued Celestron sleeper much better than the Owl 30. In this scope, the Owl shows quite a bit of field curvature, astigmatism, and coma. The TAL hardly shows any astigmatism except for at the very edge, with less curvature but the same coma. I even tried a 27 Panoptic in this scope and preferred the TAL 24 because it almost seems to have some weird coma compensating effect: the coma was not as obvious in the TAL vs. the Panoptic despite the eyepieces having nearly the same true field. Anyhow, the TAL 24 gives a great presentation of 2 degrees field of view and really compliments the 4 degrees seen in the 80mm f/7 with the Owl 30.
Summary: In my fun test with the Knight Owl 30mm 80*, TAL 24mm UWA, and even a 27 Panoptic, the combination of using the Owl in the 80mm f/7 refractor as a 19x80 finder and the TAL 24 in the G8n as a low power star cluster viewer gives a great visual effect. The TAL 24 seems better suited for fast newtonians than the Owl, and even worked better than a 27 panoptic in this particular scope, to my eye.
Have a great day!
