nhyone

Nothing is optimal, for sure. 😀 The scope is 4.7". The binoviewer's clear aperture is just 21mm on the nose side (18mm on the eyepiece side!). (So no wide views for me. But that's fine, I knew that going in. I find that field stops up to ~23mm are fine.) One of the things I want to figure out is my effective magnification! I find it much easier to use on the Moon, because it is bright enough. Now I just have two (usable) pairs, 15mm and 23mm. Will practise more before deciding whether to get more pairs -- probably not.

I'm fumbling my way with binoviewing on my Mak 127. I knew magnification would increase due to the longer light path, but I underestimated it. As a result, the image was very dim. My scope is nominally 1500mm. With binoviewer, it should be ~1700mm, but my crude measurement puts it at 2000mm! I bought a copy of 8, 10, 12 and 15mm eyepieces. In the end, only the 15mm was really usable. (It is the highest I would use for binoviewing on my scope.)

Hi, you said 18mm HD-60 is similar to Paradigm, but you did not say how good/bad they are. In past reviews, 18mm was by far the weakest in both lines. Do you feel so? I'm surprised 15mm performs similarly to the 18mm. Does that means it isn't so good after all? My takeaway from your review is, Paradigm is good, but it still loses to HD-60 when they go head-to-head. So, prefer to get HD-60 if price is not an issue. I got the BST 8, 12 and 15mm for my Mak 127. This review doesn't change my mind. 😀 (I would still get the 15mm over the 18mm.) I just got the 9 and 25mm X-Cel LX. Decided to skip the 6.5mm as it is a little too much mag (230x) for my scope [and I have several ~7mm EPs already!] and the 12mm, cos even if it is much better than the Paradigm, it is a little too low mag (125x) for its intended use (on planets).