Re: Glass magic?

Hello:
There is a good review over on CloudyNights of planetary eyepieces. By thier comparisons, a Nagler didn't even come close compared to eyepieces such as a Televue Plossl or even an Edmund RKE. Inspired by this report, I did a side-by-side test between my 17mm type4 Nagler and a 15mm Meade Plossl. The telescope involved is a 12.5" f/15 cassegrain, so these eyepieces were giving about 300x. I did most of my testing on the Moon, looking for craters and rilles on the floor of larger craters. After a bit of back and forth, it was clear that the Plossl was showing more detail. Details were a bit more crisp and contrasty, and features on the edge of visiblity were easier to see in the Plossl. The Nagler is no slouch, and I use it a lot for higher power deep sky work were the extra field of view is useful. But for planetary viewing, I now reach for the Plossl.

Cheers
MIke Connelley

That reviewer had not tried the type 6 Naglers at the time of the review. He has since noted that he has been impressed by the planetary performance of the type 6's and is doing another planetary eyepiece review to include them.

I came to the same conclusion years ago after comparing plossls with a variety of premium widefield eyepieces. Not only were the plossls clearer, but brighter as well. And I don't really care about sticking my head into the eyepiece and moving it around to get that spacewalk feel. I just like a nice bright field I can take in with one convenient lazy head position.

I think the expensive glass has its place, particularly when you get to shorter focal lengths, though. Looking through the pinhole of a 7mm plossl seems very inconvenient compared with say, the nice big hole in a radian.