Posts Made By: Brian Schmidt

I received the Orion Shorty Barlow. It does seem to have very slightly better light transmission than the Meade #140. Probably because it is fully-multi-coated, as opposed to just multi-coated. I am not sure if I am going to be able to keep it though because it does not really seem to work well with my 24mm Panoptic. Does anyone know of a problem with Panoptic eyepieces and shorty barlows?

I just bought one of these with the budget money for my high school astronomy class. The ep that comes with it is pretty bad. So I brought in my 15mm Ultrascopic and 2x "shorty" barlow that use for my 3rd ep with my 8" f/6 home built dob. It seemed to work real good for us.

Mike,
I am not sure how much money you are wanting to spend. But I recently acquired the 24mm pan and it is truly an amazing ep. I share your frustration in that I live north of Atlanta, GA and there is no such thing as a dark sky outside of my house.

In general, increasing the magnification will have the effect of darkening the sky. So for example, my 24mm pan will yield about 15x more power, yet have the same true field of view as a 32mm Plossl. The 24 Pan shows the largest true field of view possible in an 1.25 focuser. Beyond that, it becomes a balancing act if you choose to give up field of view in exchange for better contrast.

There are less expensive versions of the 24mm pan. I recently sold my Meade 24.5, which is basically a "poor man's" Panoptic. I upgraded because with my f/6 telescope, stars showed noticeable distortion in the outer fifth of the field. In slower telescopes, there would be little difference between the two, and the 24 pan is about $200 more than the Meade. Just throwing my two sense in...

Thank you so much for all who have written. Very thoughtful information.

Thank you again for all who have helped. I finished installing the focuser today on my day off and it worked out well. Scope is all collimated again. As luck would have it, I also just ran across a fellow selling an old TeleVue wf-40mm on Amart and got it for what an ok price, hopefully. I think I will enjoy cruising the Milky Way in a 2 TFoV ep as I have never had that experience before... Hopefully the performance of this ep will be between one of the cheapoo 2 inch eyepieces and the 35pan...probably won't get seasick form the pincushion distortion. Thanks again to all who have replied and helped out! I'll try to attach a pix...

Thank you guys so much for your input. At this piont, I'm leaning towards parting with the 9... In a perfect world, I'd get the scope and try everything out. Perhaps I can somehow manage to put a Seibert 2.5x amplifier onto the bridal gift registery...

I have this history of "trying" equipment then never getting around to selling the stuff that I had planned on to "finance" the new equipment. :S So as I said, the plan is to part with the 9 for the time being, then get the amplifier at somepoint in the future...

People can be funny about trades. I also think it just comes down to laws of probability. Just think about it, you have to find someone who is thinking exactly like you, but in reverse. I had the 40mm wf and was looking to trade for the 32mm wf because I will be acquiring an f/5 LightBridge (currently have 8f6 dob) for 2 months...

I gave up and listed the 40mm for the amount that I paid for it...150 bucks...had it sold in 3 seconds flat. Hence the reason why I couldn't have my wallet out fast enough to buy your 35 pan. Haven's seen a 32mm wide field in a very long time.

One thing I have been noticing is that I've seen a lot of Panoptics for sale lately. Perhaps people are shelling out 600 buks for Ethos and selling their Naglers and Panoptics to do it. I dono, just my own crackpot theory. Myself, I'm one of those weideros that actually really enjoys the Panoptics. I find it hard to take everything of the 82 degree Naglers. If they had Panoptics in short focal lengths that had good eye relief, that's what I'd have in stead of my 13 and 7 T6s.

:S

It really depends on the type of scope that one has if Ethos eps make sense. If I had a large fast dob (20-30 inch f/4ish), I would be first in line for 2 or 3 of these Ethos eyepieces due to the exit pupal restriction of the scope. As it is, I am content with my 12 inch dob due to the portability and great views. Even as such, there days when I look into my eyepiece case to see 800 dollars of my money tied up in 2 Panoptics and 2 Naglers that are being used in a scope that I paid 600 bucks for. But I guess that's why I have not made plans to look through an Ethos yet...as my Naglers seem to provide an adequate selection of powers and field.


...and in the mean time, I'll be content to acquire "soda straw" eyepieces at reduced prices...already planning on a 22 Nagler just for the heck of it once the E21 becomes readily available.

I've got a scope of just such a focal length, even known it's an 8, not 10 inch. Here's what I use most often and would recommend.

ep 1: 35 Pan OR 24 pan-for low power viewing of open clusters and scanning the sky. (second priority)

ep2: High quality 13-17mm range for medium power views and general deep sky observing such as a 13 or 12 Nagler or similar ***most important / used ep for deep sky for me.

ep 3-a good wide field (eg Nagler) in the 7-9mm range (just 1) for the deep sky objects that need more power (3rd priority)

ep 4-?: A series of TMB planetary eyepieces such as 4-3.5-2.5 for lunar, planets, and once and a while in deep sky. (4th priority)

At f/5, consider a Paracorr. The view is much improved. At f/5, the paracorr lives in my focuser.


Buying used on Astromart, you should easilly be able to get all of the following for under $1,000 with the core set of 3 eps for around $600. You also want to consider some things like weight. For example, the 24 pan, 13 and 7 T6 all weigh about the same and made a great set. I used those exclusively for quite a while before I got my 12 inch scope. Personally, I didn't care for the barlowed view with the T6 Naglers, but that's me. ymmv