5 mm eyepiece

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???

Thanks

Jeremy

Jezzer wrote:
Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???

Thanks

Jeremy


Hi.

Personally, I don't think you will like the views
through at ST 80 with such a short FL eyepiece.
I know I don't like the color and *soft* images
that short FL EP's produce in mine.
Now that said, I love my set of Meade UWA's !
Granted, the Televue Naglers, and Radians are just
a mite sharper, but the color in the UWA EP's
is *warmer* than most of the Televue line.
(I love the Panoptics tho)

And in your SCT, you will love the Meade UWA eyepieces.

If you can, you might want to check out the Pentax line
of eyepieces. Wow, I think I like them the best.

BTW, the 4.7 UWA has a specified AFOV of 84 degrees.




--
AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net

http://www.novac.com

On 2009-05-19, Jezzer wrote:

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

Personally I would go for a Baader Ortho. Sure it is not a wide
field EP but for most scopes 5mm will be a high power EP - in the
planetary rather than DSO range. I wouldn't let the current scoep
distort your decision too much sicne as has been pointed out, the
views you get may not be very good, but more importnatly you are
paying a heavy premium for one of the "I want it all" eyepeices
when it is not clear that you actually need it all.

--
Andrew Smallshaw

On May 19, 5:34 pm, Jezzer wrote:
Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???


In the long run you might get more use out of a 14- to 17-mm eyepiece
combined with a good 3x Barlow lens.

I vote for a 5mm BO/TMB Planetary - 12mm eye relief and 58degree fov and
around $50. I have a 6mm, and it has performed extremely well at every focal
ratio at which I have used it - f/10 to f/4.7. If you are loaded, get the
5mm T6 Nagler. In any case, I would pass on the Orthos and Plossls at 5mm,
as the eye relief will be very tight. Of course, you can also barlow
something longer - many fine choices.

Dennis

"Jezzer" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???

Thanks

Jeremy
-----------------------------------------
The SMC Pentax XW-5 is a fantastic EP (if you can afford one) I highly
recommend it.

Stu.

Jezzer wrote:
Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

What eyepieces do you have already?

You could end up wasting money for an unstable soft view with false
colour and empty magnification using a 5mm eyepiece.

A 7mm or 8mm and a decent 2x Barlow might give you a better range of
options (and be usable more often to advantage).

It is worth owning eypieces in a Fibonacci series in combination with a
2x Barlow. eg.
7, 10, 16, 26, 40 gets you with the Barlow 3.5,5,8,13,20

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

If you want to use it in an SCT at f10 then you probably do want the 7mm
rather than the 5mm. Skies are not often all that steady in the UK.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???

The Pentax eyepieces are also worth considering. I like my XL7 for
planetary views. Eye relief is generous too.

Regards,
Martin Brown

wrote in message
...
On May 19, 5:34 pm, Jezzer wrote:
Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a short focal length eyepiece around the 5mm
mark for my refractor - an ST80 f/l 400mm. I was wondering if anyone
had anything to help me decide between the following:

Meade 5000 Series 4.7mm Ultra Wide Angle (arounf £149-£169)
Televue Nagler Type 6 5mm (about £220)
Tak LE 5mm (about £206)

The first two both have 82 deg FOV, not sure about the Tak.
These should give me around 80x mag in the scope or 160-170 mag with a
barlow.
I know - this is a high end eyepiece for a cheap refractor but I
figure that scopes come and go but eyepieces are forever. One day I
shall buy a really nice refractor to go with the eyepiece. Anyway - I
can also use it in my 8" SCT to get around 400x on nights of steady
seeing.

The Meade looks like the bargain here (found it on Pulsar Optical for
£149). Is it as good as the Nagler? Better???


In the long run you might get more use out of a 14- to 17-mm eyepiece
combined with a good 3x Barlow lens.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree with that recommendation. Good = expensive but it will be money
well spent. A 2x quality Barlow would be pretty useful as well.

You would retain the eye relief of the longer focal length but the
magnification of the shorter f.l.

And you will find very few times in the UK (or anywhere) where a 5mm
eyepiece's magnification will be all that useful.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

Getting a Barlow will be a better choice if you already have a few EPs. You
automatically double the number of EPs you already have in one purchase and
the barlow also gives a better eye relief than the 5mm EP will give unless
it is already a barlowed design.

--
Bob May

rmay at nethere.com
http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay
http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

snip

It is worth owning eypieces in a Fibonacci series in combination with a
2x Barlow. eg.
7, 10, 16, 26, 40 gets you with the Barlow 3.5,5,8,13,20

Your largest and smallest are exceptions: the doubled F-series is

...., 6, 10, 16, 26, 42, ....

--
Odysseus