Posts Made By: Jeff Quinn

I have been away from Astromart and look at what happened to our names! We all have last names on our posts now! That is good. I have been obsessing over my car and not my scopes, he he he he

I didn't visit Astromart for like a whole month straight! Guess that is what happens when you get all your eyepieces and scopes collected, no more reason to surf the 'fieds every day.

Hi Astromart guys and gals,

I would like your opinions on the Meade 13.8 & 18mm SWA eyepieces for use in f/5 (fast) reflectors. I know that they won't be quite like a comparable Panoptic, but usable?

Please give me your opinions!

I almost sold my best scope and I am so glad I didn't

I recently moved from Arizona to Oregon and have been adjusting to the cloudiness and cold weather. I have not used my scopes very often but tonight I forced myself to set up my refractor because the sky was clear from horizon to horizon. I live in a house (finally) with a deep back yard and it was very weird not having to drive an hour each way to an observing site to use my scope. The sky became mag. 6 dark as night fell with hardly a trace of light pollution.

Lining up the long refractor on familiar objects that I had not seen in months reminded me of how cleansing a good night of observing is. I was pissed off over some stuff beforehand and now I feel so awesome! Saturn was the best, just etched and it withstood some 400x persuasion. Then there was a moon shadow transit on Jupiter . . . and some deep sky stuff like Hubble's Variable neb. and a few doubles on Orion.

Fate has spoken, despite this poor economy's temptation for me to sell my scopes. Thankfully no one bought them!

They also "forgot" to tell me that I would owe US customs $40 for a binoviewer I bought from them. Grrrrrr!

Yes I have compared them. 9mm Nagler = more eye relief, (much) less reflection on bright objects and slightly more contrast. Sharpness was the same.

As for the 14mm UWA vs. the old 13mm Nagler, the 14 UWA is better due to more sharpness at edge, less kidney bean and does not have too much eye relief like the nagler. Strange how different focal lengths of the same model eyepiece have different characteristics.

How do the Speers Waler WA (80 degree afov) eyepices work out in fast newtonian reflectors? Specifically, the 10mm, 14mm and 18mm WA? These are new versions of the original ones which had 70 degree afov's.

TIA

A couple years ago I owned a 10mm Speers Waler eyepiece. It had on and off-axis sharpness equal to the best orthos and the well regarded Meade 14mm UWA. Its only drawback was some dust in its focal plane, unorthodox infocus and shape, and "only" 70 degree afov.

Speers Waler has released a few revised versions of their old 70 degree eyepices, designated WA. I'm contemplating being the first to buy and test their 10wa and 14wa eyepieces, but I might as well ask if anyone else has. My scope isn't even ready for them yet, as it is still being built. (10" f/5)

GOOD JOB!! These are one frame each? Wow.

Wow!! That is nice. I barely saw its eye last night, visually, in my own 6" Meade refractor. Time for me to get a CCD camera.

Even though I flamed you for bashing SCTs before the forums changed, I admire your thinking here on this subject. I will be mounting my 152ED beside my beloved 12" LX200 OTA on my AP mount. You are going to hate me for this, but they will both be repainted white with tak green trim! Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery . . . I can't afford a 300mm Dall Kirkham so I will have to live with my 305mm SCT. BTW I can flatten its field and reduce its coma to below perception with my 40mm XL by threading my Lumicon Coma Corrector onto the front of my 2" diaganol. But still has 1/5 wave optics at best!!!!!