maxvision 24mm 82degrees first light

[rowan46]

I thought I would post in this forum as there are a few people following it. first let me tell you a bit about my expertise so that you can decide if you want waste to any more time reading it. I do not have the technical knowledge to comment on the technical side. If you want to know angular resolution etc you will need to go elsewhere as I not only don't know how to measure it. I also don't know what it means.

My backgound as an eyepiece tester usually consists of that's nice or it'll do so bear with me.

I am using a 80/480 triplet so the 24mm gives me a magnification of 20x ( that's about the limit of my factual knowledge the rest is opinion)

Whilst waiting for the sky to darken I swung round to watch Jupiter disappear It was as expected a murky ball but did show 4 round pinpricks of light. Swinging the scope back to saturn and I was surprised to get a very clear and sharp round planet with ears. The surprise was at how much clearer and sharper the image was than my 20x 80 triplet bins. A few stars were starting to pop so I had a look.

Oh dear comets almost everywhere I looked. I fiddled with focus and some of the comets snapped into focus but not all by a long chalk. I swung the comets into the middle of the field of view and some disappeared but I was disappointed I was getting only maybe 40% of the fov as sharp pin point stars. I needed to check my scope collimation so put in my delos 12mm and stars were pin point all over not the scope then but definitely the eyepiece. Replacing the maxvision I noticed that the stars were all pinpoint so swung it around to look at the beehive (m44) and back came the comets. I fiddled with the focus, I adjusted the axis all to no avail and then It snapped into view. It took me a while to realise it was eye placement that was the key (most likely user error) because once I found the spot it was easy to keep my eye there and stars were pin points.

I have to confess I was not overwhelmed by my 4.7mm es82. My delos and pentax xw give much better views but I was surprised by the view in the maxvision 24. Once you get the eye placement and focus right this gives a very sharp image stars were pinpoint to the edge of the field of view it was only when you peered round the corners so to speak you noticed those comets.

m44 is one of my favourite messiers and I have to say this eyepiece gives me the most aesthetically pleasing view of all my eyepieces those tiny pinpricks of light nearly fill the eyepiece with just enough border to provide a nice frame. I bought this to help find objects in conjunction with my rigel quikfinder and I think I may have the best optical finderscope in the world (opinion).

Sorry I can't give a detailed technical review. but an opinion I now have is this eyepiece is lovely it oozes quality when you pick it up and once you learn to use it it is very nearly the equal of my 12mm delos and 7mm pentax in quality of views. I was told they were good I hadn't realised how good but seeing is believing.

All those who bought one of these are I think going to be very pleasantly surprised, they may not be alpha glass but they are not far off. At full price I would not be very disappointed these are a very good eyepiece in their own right but at the bargain price offered :grin: :grin: I must get back now and see if I can get my eye in the right position in the es82. I can't wait for summer this eyepiece is going to be gorgeous on the milky way. (By the way I prefer the maxview livery to the meade as it's much more understated)

[russ.will]

I think it's a common misconception that you can bung your eye anywhere near an UWA EP and get perfect views, as you've discovered. There's definitely a point where it all comes together across the FOV and the eye relief is tightish in order to do so. That said, you can at least get some sort of view, even with the contortions required by a longtube frac. Go to the opposite extreme of an ortho and you'll find yourself breaking your back to see anything!

Nice report, by the way.

Russell

[andrew63]

Thanks for your views and quick response - there will be many people reading your thoughts on these maxvision. I find i have a love hate relationship with UWA and prefer SWA as being more comfortable. I have a maxvision 20mm SWA to come so looking forward to see how it matches up.

Sounds like you got a nice lens !

andrew

[rory]

i also have a couple of these maxvision's on route ,albeit the 68* not 82*. but your report on them seems to be possitive. thanks for your thoughts.

[Stargazer_00]

I find i have a love hate relationship with UWA and prefer SWA as being more comfortable.

I have a notion like this. Having just filled my box with ES82s, which are awesome by the way, I find myself wanting a Delos or 2 for the comfort. Quite willing to shave off some of the FOV for the more comfortable (and higher quality I presume) views.

This is a good report for the Maxivision by the way rowan46. I have a 24mm Meade 5k UWA and I can pretty much read the review as my exact first impression for this eyepiece too. It seems on rich star fields it shows coma very badly (on my scopes it shows 31x and 50x) but on not so rich fields you can't see it at all. The first target i looked at with mine was the double cluster which is a perfect test for coma as it highlights it immediately, and it did. I found the 18mm ES82 improved quite alot on the meade but this was more likely due to a change in magnification than anything particular with the eyepieces.

With the meade I found the central 40%, like you, was more or less coma free. This would be while looking right at the centre of the FOV. I found if I moved my head around the stars that were coma-like became sharp as points when viewed directly. It is only in the periphial vision that my eye was detecting a halo trail behind the stars which wasn't visible with direct vision.

I've still yet to buy a coma corrector, I probably should think about that first after i get a new scope which will get even faster!

[alan potts]

I think you underrate yourself it's a nice report. Eye placement is quickly leant and the twist up eye-guard helps this. I think the comets as you call them may be coma as I don't see such things with my Meade 24mm UWA but on slower scopes possibly, the fastest I have used it on is F5.26 which is a lot more forgiving than say F4.7, where few eyepieces shine. Alan.

[faulksy]

very nice report, I like the thought of it not being to technical

[bingevader]

Thought I'd throw in my 2 pennies here rather than starting a new thread.

I've just had one of these for Christmas and it's huge! I opted for the 2" 82^o rather than the 1.25" 68^o so that it would fit between the 32mm and the 18mm with out need for an adapter.

First chance I had to use it last night would you believe, so this is very much my first light report as the clouds came in rather quickly.

All it's missing is the little blue collar of its Meade cousin, otherwise it's very solidly built with the identical twist up eye cup with too much grease! The groove on the 2" barrel is a comfort though when locking the EP into place on the focuser due to its size and weight. I had to tighten the handles on the dob base more than usual to prevent it slowly descending to the ground!

As rowan46 has said, the eye placement does take a couple of minutes to get used to, but once comfy, it's no longer an issue.

I was delighted with the image through the EP. In my 8" 'scope with a 1200mm FL it gave the added magnification (50x) over the Panaview (38x) to frame the Double Cluster with out trimming the edges like in the ES (67x). The central area of the FOV is crisp and sharp, but as Graham has said, the edges are soft (I have a question about this later!).

I took out the 25mm TV Plossl (48x) for a little comparison. There was a surprising difference, and personally, I preferred the Maxvision. I don't know whether it's to do with light transmission, hopefully someone will be able to explain, but there was considerably more uniformity in the light from the pinpoint stars as seen through TV Plossl. On the other hand, although still pinpoints, the intensities and colour of the stars varied more dramatically through the Maxvision and gave a more stunning and beautiful view. I had honestly thought, despite the smaller FOV that the contrast would be better through the TV Plossl. This was only a first light impression through and I will follow this up.

The same was true for the Orion Nebula. Once I was over the "moon illusion" of the image looking bigger through the smaller FOV EP, although the image was somewhat brighter through the plossl, there was less contrast. The central region and the Trapezium were brighter, but I needed slightly averted vision to see anything else. The Maxvision however was stunning with a much greater level of detail visible without averted vision. I hadn't expected this.

Although the clouds rolled in quickly and curtailed the time available, the conditions were reasonably good with little wind and steady skies. I interchanged the EPs several times to confirm what I was seeing, but as I already mentioned, this was only one night and the first time out for the Maxvision. But, first impressions were that I was generally delighted!

So, on to the question! Graham mentioned coma and I'd agree, the outer regions of the EP are soft and not sharp when the centre is in focus. However, the stars were fuzzy rather than comet like and as with the Panaview, I was able to refocus on the edges (but lose focus on the centre). Excuse my ignorance, but are you able to adjust for coma in this way, or is it field curvature that I'm seeing? I wasn't expecting it to be honest and If you were expecting edge to edge sharpness, then this isn't it, but then as I've already said, I'm delighted with it and especially at the Maxvision price! However, it has made me look at the Panaview in a whole new light with regards to its performance to cost benefits!

Cheers

[Reeny]

Excellent report.

I found the 68-degree MaxVisons gave a little bit of edge distortion, which disappeared when using the Barlow.

Maybe I need to adjust my eye position as well.

I shall try it with the eye cup extended.

[jetstream]

Bingevader,I have noticed the same thing regarding eye position and focus being different on and off axis with a lot of my EP's,usually by a small amount.Not really sure how the eyeplacement affects some EP's worse than others,but it seems too.I don't think coma can be focused out,but the focusing will make a smaller,tighter image making the coma appear less.John the mod gave this link in a post a while back,its very good http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2007/dscobel.27.html

[andrew63]

It sounds like field curvature - most wide angle eyepieces will have it to some extent. Think of the field of view as being like an upturned bowl. A flat wide field is hard to achieve !

andrew

[bingevader]

Thanks all, and thanks for the link Jetstream, I did have a little look around, but some of the sites get rather technical. I did find this which is pretty good too.

I didn't think the 8" Skyliner should be fast enough at f6 to have that much coma and I do seem to be able to focus it out like in the Panaview.

Cheers