Antares W70 wide field.

[paul schofield]

Hello just a quick question with regards to a couple of e.p's

Firstly has anyone experience of the Antares W70 6mm widefield ep ?

Or the Williams Optic SPL 6mm ?

I am currently looking for a decent 6mm eyepiece for my 200p and have I think for now narrowed my choices down to these 2, and maybe Baader G.O 6mm, although I think the narrow f.o.v. may put me off the latter.

If anyone has tried these e.p's in an f6 scope if so, how do they perform & what were your findings ?

Thanks for any replies.

Paul.

[John]

Hi Paul,

I've not used a WO 6mm SPL but I've read good reviews of that range.

I have used the Antares W70 and owned a Baader GO 6mm.

The Antares is the same eyepiece as the Skywatcher UWA 6mm but with a silver body pushed over the Skywatcher one (really !). It works well enough in an F/10 scope but it's not going to impress much in the F/6 200P.

The Baader GO is a superb eyepiece, on par with the best albeit with a smaller field of view and quite tight eye relief. Small prices to pay for premium optical performance though, perhaps ?

So, for me, it would be a choice between the Baader and the William Optics.

[paul schofield]

Thanks for that John. As you say smaller eye relief and f.o.v is small price to pay for a great image through the e.p. with planets. I always come back to the Baader G.O's.

Nice colour too, gotta love black and green eyepieces. Seriously though, thanks for your advice.

Paul.

[alan potts]

Paul,

Yes I had the 6mm Antares and I didn't like it. It just had a bit of a cheap feel about it for me. But ia am putting it along side Meade SWA, UWA and Televues. I believe it has now been replaced by a 5.7mm variant.

Alan.

[John]

I quite like the Skywatcher 66 degree UWA's when used with an F/10 scope. Have a look at this Cloudynights forum thread on the Antares W70's though:

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1801526/page/17/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

A little shocking really, especially as the W70's were somewhat more expensive than the Skywatcher's at that time !

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I could stand the narrow FOV of orthos (I have had a 5mm and 25mm circle T). I did not like the horrible eye relief of the 5mm (the 25 had 20mm which is fine). If you do not wear glasses, tight eye relief is not a real problem, for me (with astigmatism) it really is.

[russ.will]

I was viewing Jupiter in daylight through a 6mm SPL three weeks back, which obviously limits absolute judgements. However, it had good eye relief and a nice large occular lens which made it very pleasant to view through.

Russell

[Dave79]

I have an Antares and it works fine in my f4 SNT. But being an SNT, the EP will work better than a normal newt.

I'll see if anyone at Kielder has the other EP and I'll let you know how that goes.

[John]

I have an Antares and it works fine in my f4 SNT. But being an SNT, the EP will work better than a normal newt.

I'll see if anyone at Kielder has the other EP and I'll let you know how that goes. ��

The SNT has much less coma than a conventional newtonian but if an eyepiece suffers from astigmatism (which all low cost, wide fields do in my experience) it will show distorted stars at the edges of the field of view in any scope design thats fast.

[Dave79]

Aye John, it does, but only on about the outer 5% I'd say.

For the price of the EP, I'm made up with that.

I could have spent a lot more on a different one, but would it be worth it? Personally I don't think so.

Maybe I was lucky and got an exceptionally good 'un , I don't know.

I look at EP prices this way:

If 1 costs £100 and an equivalent costs £200, does the 2nd give a view that's 100% better to make it worth it?

It doesn't mean buy the cheapest you can find, but think is paying for a name worth it.

Buy quality but don't get ripped off.

I wish more retailers were like Sky's the Limit. Buy 2, see which 1 is best, send t'other back for a refund. Sorry if I'm not supposed to plug retailers.

Anyway, I'll get off me soap box now.

[John]

Aye John, it does, but only on about the outer 5% I'd say.

For the price of the EP, I'm made up with that.

I could have spent a lot more on a different one, but would it be worth it? Personally I don't think so.

Maybe I was lucky and got an exceptionally good 'un , I don't know......

If your Antares W70 is sharp across 95% of the field of view of your F/4 then I'd say you got very lucky indeed

The ones I've owned / used were only really nice at F/8 and above. With my F/6.5 ED refractor around 40% of the field of view contained stars shaped like mini seagulls !.

Maybe I was unlucky with the ones I've used though ?