On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 16:06:20 -0700, "Florian"
wrote:
I did a brief comparison of the BW-Optik 30mm Ultrawide with the Orion 35mm DeepView last night in my Guan Sheng 10" f5 dob. The 30mm Ultrawide was purcased from Anacortes Telescopes for $95 and the 35mm DeepView is from Orion for $69. In my scope the Ultrawide gave me 40x where the DeepView gave me about 34x. Actual fields were similar with the Ultrawide showing just a bit more sky. However the higher magnification and wider apparent field of the Ultrawide makes the view more satisfying. The DeepView did have a bit longer eye relief but it was easy to get my eye off-axis and see black kidney bean dropouts. I didn't notice the dropouts with the Ultrawide. Both eyepieces in my f5 scope are quite poor off center showing pretty bad images just half way from center to edge. Stars around the edges were especially bad in the Ultrawide. The Ultrawide weighs over 20 oz while the DeepView weighs a bit over 13 oz. On my scope there was a slight tendency for the tube to tilt downward with the
Ultrawide in place. A small sandbag or beanbag type weight on the mirror end would correct this easily however. I didn't like the safety groove on the DeepView. It kept snagging on the set screws when i wanted to remove the eyepiece from the focuser. The Ultrawide has a smooth barrel with no safety groove. The coatings on the Ultrawide are a deep green and seem better just looking at them in daylight. The DeepView in comparison seemed almost uncoated.
All in all i preferred the BW-Optik Ultrawide to the Orion DeepView. The Ultrawide is a very solid (heavy) eyepiece and since i don't wear glasses while observing the closer eye relief is fine for me. Seeing 2° of sky through a 10" scope is pretty neat!
Since there is nothing wrong with the Orion eyepiece and it does perform as advertised i feel a bit sheepish about returning it for a refund. It's not Orion's fault i bought another eyepiece i like better. So instead of returning it i've decided to offer the eyepiece on eBay. See the following link if you're interested...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2941233438
-Florian
Stargazing.com
Hey Florian,
I recently purchased the BW 30mm as well, and like it so much I sold
my Pan 35.
At f7.5 it’s sharp out to about 80-90 deg of the way to the field
stop. At f5 *with* *the* *paracorr*, this decreases a little, but
it’s pretty similar. I haven’t used it at f5 without a paracorr yet,
and I'd be interested in hearing your impressions in more detail.
I've found that the field isn’t perfectly flat, but it’s sufficient.
You do need to remember to focus on objects in the center of the fov.
The 80 deg fov is impressive, and in side by sides with the pano 35 I
typically preferred the slightly higher magnification and wider field
- althought the pan was truly sharp to the edge. Haven’t really
checked for pincushion in the BW, but if it’s there I’m thinking it’s
not hugely terrible. I agree that coatings are quite good and
throughput is pretty high.
The gist was for me: I have a $365 eyepeice in the pan 35 that for
the most part stays in my case while I used either the 22 nagler or 22
panoptic for low power views. I sold the pan 35, pocketed the extra
$200 and am quite happy with it.
I had a lingering fear that I was going to be replacing it down the
road with a pan 35 because of it’s performance at f5, but after what
I’ve seen the last couple of nights, I’m not going to be in a rush to
do that. I still may, but then again, I may not.
Fit and finish on mine is very good. Not TV quality, but perhaps
vixen. The edges on the newest ones are blackened, and at least my
optics are clean. The guy who advertises the 1rpd version says he
does some QC on them (if I recall correctly).
I got the BW solely because I’ve done a fair amount of business with
Anacortes and that’s what they carried. From what I’ve heard, either
version is about the same quality wise.
The BW does not come with a box, but it does come with (cheap) endcaps
and a plastic bolt case.
IMO, at $95, it's the steal of the year.
Tom T.