Televue Panoptic

[alan potts]

I saw an advert the other day for a 22mm Panoptic, is this correct? seems a bit close to the 24mm to me.

Was there an old range?

Alan.

[DirkSteele]

It was discontinued some time ago. Possibly around the time of the introduction of the 22mm Type 4 Nagler though I am not sure about that.

Clear skies,

[alan potts]

Were there others that anyone know of as 19 mm seems an odd place to stop?

Alan

[John]

The 22mm had a hybrid 1.25" - 2" barrel although it's a 1.25" eyepiece. I believe it's an older design than the 24mm Panoptic. At the other end of the scale there was the 15mm, the shortest FL Panoptic. It is interesting that there was an overlap in the range at the 22/24mm point - logically you would think that the switch to 2" barrels would come at 27mm. Drop Al Nagler an e.mail and ask him what he was playing at

[Alma]

The 22mm has a 2" sleeve but is still a 1.25" eyepiece. It's larger than the 24mm and pre-dates it by a few years. I've owned both and consider each to be fine, extremely comfortable eyepieces to use. The 24mm can be used in binoviewers (subject to vignetting in the less expensive models) whereas the 22mm generally isn't suitable for that purpose. If you can get the 22mm at a decent price then go for it!

[Moonshane]

I have owned both the 24mm and 22mm (separate times of course) and liked both. If I had to choose, it would be the 24mm every time but they are both excellent and the 22mm goes for a little less money usually.

[alan potts]

Thanks one and all.

Drop Al Nagler a line, John, and ask him what he was playing at. Is he a site member? Not that I will it just seemed odd to me 22mm and 24mm. Then as I said 19mm seemed an odd place to stop, but I have never seen the 15mm so it must be rare.

The interesting thing is Televue seem to be the only 68 degree and less that will sell at the moment. I am almost giving away my Meade SWA 20mm, 28mm 34mm & 40mm and not even a sniff. Oh If only I had bought Televue in the first place, we live and learn, I hope.

Alan.

[John]

....Drop Al Nagler a line, John, and ask him what he was playing at. Is he a site member? ......

Probably not

I did phone Tele Vue once and ended up having a short conversation with David Nagler. He seemed amicable enough.

Some interesting stuff on the Panoptics here from Todd Gross:

http://telescopeandbinoculars.com/nagler2.htm

It pre-dates the 24mm and 41mm ones though.

[great_bear]

The 15mm Panoptic was not entirely successful.

- I've heard it said that the Meade 16mm SWA was better.

Similarly, I picked a Meade 24mm SWA over the 24mm Panoptic.

- I preferred the less distorted view of the Meade SWA and its unvignetted field-stop.

[alan potts]

Great Bear,

That is really interesting and again shows how we are all different and see different. I had both Meade 24mm Swa and TV Panoptic 24mm and saw it the other way. The panoptic 24mm to me is diffent a class. The good thing is it don't matter who is right, we both are.

Alan.

[alan potts]

John,

Nice of you to put the Panoptic link, there was me thinking the 41mm was an origanal member of the group. Ineresting what it was saying about our own astigmatisum, I'm going to test myself tonight, it will be clear.

Alan.

[ollypenrice]

Probably not

I did phone Tele Vue once and ended up having a short conversation with David Nagler. He seemed amicable enough.

Some interesting stuff on the Panoptics here from Todd Gross:

http://telescopeandb...com/nagler2.htm

It pre-dates the 24mm and 41mm ones though.

I needed to collimate an old TV quadruplet refractor once and rang TV directly. They were absolutely fantastic and spent a good ten minutes giving me detailed instructions, not trying to hurry me up, encouraging me to write things down and double checking that I'd got it clear. This is one of the reasons why I always defend them against the easy slur that they are too expensive or 'hyped' etc. They are not. They sell products with integrity and they innovate. The rest copy them. They will also repair and service their products.

Olly

[great_bear]

The panoptic 24mm to me is diffent a class. The good thing is it don't matter who is right, we both are.

Oh I certainly wouldn't disagree that the Panoptic is in a different league to the SWA - it's just that the main thing for me was that in the Mak 180 and SW130P the view was vignetted (clearly the scope's issue in both cases) however the SWA had just that tiny, tiny little bit less FOV to allow its field-stop to remain within the limits set by these scopes.

The less distorted view in the SWA, and the considerably more attractive price, just tipped the balance.

Similarly I can't imagine paying £440 for the 41mm Pan, when my £135 40mm SW Aero does the trick. I recognise the Televue as the superior eyepiece, but at that size of exit-pupil, my eyeballs are definitely too astigmatic to notice any difference!

[alan potts]

Great Bear,

I like my 41mm and I did have the Aero or at least the same thing I got in America with a didferent box. I liked it for it's weigh but to me it was not good enough in the F 7 refractor. I have to say in the F10 LX there was no real diferences except the very limit of edges, the last 3%. Lets face at less than a thrid of the price even I can forgive that. The good thing was I got the Panoptic S/H so it wasn't so painful, I not sure I would buy one if I had my time again, I use the Meade 30mm UWA and 35mm Panoptic most of the time at that end. The Meade UWA is a heck of an eyepiece.

Alan.