Vixen LVW 42mm vs Panoptic 41mm

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, 25585 said:

I guess the "zoom" best suited to ep use is one of those turrets. I have seen a Takahashi one but no eps in it. Quite cumbersome. 

 

Here's a 5 position, 2" turret in action.  Unfortunately, Van Slyke's Hexagonal turret is out of production along with his business after a forest fire wiped him out.

[John]

Michael mentions the 40mm TMB Paragon as being a nice 2" 40mm. I believe that the Skywatcher Aero ED 40mm contains the same optics. They are not as well corrected in faster scopes as the Panoptic but work pretty well at F/8 and slower. You sometimes see the same eyepieces with different branding including "Sky Rover" which the manufacturer itself uses for them and in the USA the Astro Tech Titan II is the same thing.

 

 

[Louis D]

5 minutes ago, 25585 said:

So it looks like for wide FOV eps the Panoptic is left without competition in the 40s now, a least it has good eye relief for the price.

I'd still vote for the 40mm Maxvision or the 40mm ES-68 if having a tapered top is important.  The Maxvision has 29mm of usable eye relief, the ES has less due to a recessed eye lens.  Either will be better corrected at the edge than the 42mm LVW in a fast scope.

[25585]

4 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I'd still vote for the 40mm Maxvision or the 40mm ES-68 if having a tapered top is important.  The Maxvision has 29mm of usable eye relief, the ES has less due to a recessed eye lens.  Either will be better corrected at the edge than the 42mm LVW in a fast scope.

FLO has the ES 68 deg Maxvision on its site. But the photo shows a recessed lens. Binging, the 2 are synonymous. What is the other Maxvision?

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, 25585 said:

FLO has the ES 68 deg Maxvision on its site. But the photo shows a recessed lens. Binging, the 2 are synonymous. What is the other Maxvision?

It's flush mounted once you decloak it to within 1mm or 2mm.  The Maxvision are from a cancelled Meade 5000 SWA order when Meade discontinued the line.  Here's a view of the 31mm Axiom (same as the 30mm Meade UWA and mushroom top 30mm ES-82), 34mm Meade 5000 SWA, and 40mm Meade 5000 SWA all decloaked with associated weight savings.  Decloaking the UWA line doesn't increase eye relief because the top part with the eye lens is flush with the top of the eyecup.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

12 hours ago, 25585 said:

The Widescreen Centre emailed me today to say they no longer have LVW 42mm. 

SLVs are plentiful everywhere but not the Ws. 

So it looks like for wide FOV eps the Panoptic is left without competition in the 40s now, a least it has good eye relief for the price. 

If the Aero 40mm is as good as the old TMB Paragon 40mm it could give the Panoptic a serious run for its money in slower scopes (I wouldn't use a 40mm in really fast scopes). The Paragon/Aero has 20mm eye relief, and is very comfy. The MaxVision 40mm 68 deg and ES 40mm 68 deg also have ample eye relief (actually, the ES lists 31mm which is a bit long).

[Axunator]

I recently got SW Aero ED 40 after reading good reviews about it and other TMB Paragon clones (AT Titan II ED and TS Paragon 40, of which at least the latter seems to be the exactly same rebranded EP as Aero, although recently discontinued). In my Tak FC100-DF (f/7.4), the outer edge of Aero shows severe astigmatism. The field curvature in a small APO may of course worsen it, but e.g. my Nagler 26T5 remains tack sharp all the way to the edge in the same scope.

Would love to try Pan 41 with the Tak, as the 3.5 deg field is quite spectacular even in Aero. The price you pay in exchange for perfect edge performance is 3-4 times the cash and 2 times the weight, though...

[25585]

The big TV is appealing. But with them there is always the eye placement/kidney beaning aspect. Lot of outlay to be disappointed over for any aspect. 

[John]

5 hours ago, Axunator said:

I recently got SW Aero ED 40 after reading good reviews about it and other TMB Paragon clones (AT Titan II ED and TS Paragon 40, of which at least the latter seems to be the exactly same rebranded EP as Aero, although recently discontinued). In my Tak FC100-DF (f/7.4), the outer edge of Aero shows severe astigmatism. The field curvature in a small APO may of course worsen it, but e.g. my Nagler 26T5 remains tack sharp all the way to the edge in the same scope.

Would love to try Pan 41 with the Tak, as the 3.5 deg field is quite spectacular even in Aero. The price you pay in exchange for perfect edge performance is 3-4 times the cash and 2 times the weight, though...

I don't think the Aero ED (or the TMB Paragon) can compete with Tele Vue in faster scopes but they are a step up from the lower cost SWA's such as the Panaview, IMHO. Here are a couple of relevent reviews:

Paragon vs low cost wide fields:

https://www.astromart.com/reviews/article.asp?article_id=624

Paragon vs Tele Vue "big guns":

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/cn-reports/eyepiece-reports/cn-report-panoptics-and-naglers-and-paragons-oh-my-r1624

 

[25585]

Interesting reviews. Shame the 35mm Panoptic could not have been matched against the Nagler as well though giving closer magnification. 

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, 25585 said:

Interesting reviews. Shame the 35mm Panoptic could not have been matched against the Nagler as well though giving closer magnification. 

Some folks prefer the 35mm Panoptic to the 31mm Nagler when not using a coma corrector because coma appears worse the farther off axis you go regardless of magnification.

[25585]

I would love to try a 31 Nagler! Just to settle my curiosity. (Also 41 Panoptic, ES 40, Delos 20, 21 Ethos)

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, 25585 said:

I would love to try a 31 Nagler! Just to settle my curiosity. (Also 41 Panoptic, ES 40, Delos 20, 21 Ethos)

Delos 20?  There's a 17.3 Delos.  Did you mean 20mm ES-100?  Add to that list 17mm ES-92.  I really love mine in spite of its enormous weight and bulk.

[25585]

9 hours ago, Louis D said:

Delos 20?  There's a 17.3 Delos.  Did you mean 20mm ES-100?  Add to that list 17mm ES-92.  I really love mine in spite of its enormous weight and bulk.

Yup 17.3 Delos. What is the effective eye relief of your ES-92 please?

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, 25585 said:

Yup 17.3 Delos. What is the effective eye relief of your ES-92 please?

I measure it at 17mm via flashlight projection.  For comparison, I measure my 10mm Delos at 18mm, my 7mm Pentax XW at 16mm, my 14mm Pentax XL at 18mm, my 9mm Vixen LV at 18mm, my 14mm Morpheus at 19mm, my 17mm Nagler T4 at 14mm, my 18mm Meade HD-60 at 19mm.  In actual use, it is slightly tighter than the Delos, Morpheus and XL, but more similar to the XW than the numbers would indicate.  It is way more comfortable than the T4 which requires shoving my eyeglasses deep into my eye socket.  The view makes the Morpheus feel claustrophic by comparison to say nothing of the Delos and XW, let alone XL at 65 degrees.  Switching to a 50 degree Vixen LV causes shortness of breath.