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Meade 14mm UWA or Nirvana 16mm in a 12" F5 Dob

avtaram

By avtaram
in Discussions - Eyepieces

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avtaram

avtaram

Posted
Posted

Thinking of getting a Meade 14mm UWA or a Nirvana 16mm for medium power in my 12" F5 Dob and using a Barlow with these for a bit more power.

I would appreciate any feed back on these eyepieces as I'm not sure how they will perform at F5.

Avtar

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NGC 1502

NGC 1502

Posted
Posted

Well now, sorry to be bad news, but I've borrowed a current model Meade 14mm UWA, and found it a poor performer in my F4.8 Dob, very fuzzy stars away from the centre of the field of view, but I don't use a parracor.

Don't know how the Nirvana performs, hopefully someone will know.

Regards, Ed.

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John

John

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I've not owned either the Meade or the ES but I have owned a 16mm UWAN which is the same as the Nirvana. I thought it a very nice eyepiece in the F/5.9 8" dob I had at the time. I later upgraded to a Nagler 16mm but the improvements were quite slight and probably did not justify the extra costs. 

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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My experiences with the Meade Series 5000 14mm UWA are very different. I used it in Olly's 20" F/4.1 Dobsonian, and it held up well against my Nagler 17T4. Stars were sharp enough to see the difference between a near stellar planetary nebula and the surrounding stars (at least, on nights that the seeing was good enough). The 17T4 might have been a shade sharper at the edges, but in the centre the difference was very small indeed,

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John

John

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Some very different views on the Meade here. Could the quality be inconsistent ?

F/4.8 is somewhat more testing on an eyepiece than F/5.9 though. At F/4.1 I would have thought coma would be the dominant aberration unless a corrector was in use.

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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I trust we are all talking about the Series 5000, not the Series 4000. Olly's Dob did not seem to show horrendous coma. Olly has always noted that. The was certainly some visible. I noted no trace of astigmatism I could see. I gather the 14 mm ES 82° is essentially the same design as the Meade S5000 14mm UWA

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alan potts

alan potts

Posted
Posted

Just a little point there are two models of the 14mm UWA and the 8.8mm, I don't know if they changed the optics but my MK 1 version was very good indeed down to F5.26 which is as fast as I can go.

Thw UWa's Mk1 series covered 30mm, 24mm, 18mm, 14mm, 8.8mm, 6.7mm and 4.7mm. The second series of them was different: a new 5.5mm, remakes of 8.8mm as well as 14mm and a new 20mm though I only ever saw that advertised in America and am not sure it ever made market. The 24mm and 30mm you see at TH are just old stock.

The changes came about when they were having problems with JOC so JOC may not have made them, but I don't know for sure. There was also a fairly large price difference the latter being about 60 pounds less than the former model.

This Info came from my friendly Meade dealer.

Alan

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
Posted

Just a little point there are two models of the 14mm UWA and the 8.8mm, I don't know if they changed the optics but my MK 1 version was very good indeed down to F5.26 which is as fast as I can go.

Thw UWa's Mk1 series covered 30mm, 24mm, 18mm, 14mm, 8.8mm, 6.7mm and 4.7mm. The second series of them was different: a new 5.5mm, remakes of 8.8mm as well as 14mm and a new 20mm though I only ever saw that advertised in America and am not sure it ever made market. The 24mm and 30mm you see at TH are just old stock.

The changes came about when they were having problems with JOC so JOC may not have made them, but I don't know for sure. There was also a fairly large price difference the latter being about 60 pounds less than the former model.

This Info came from my friendly Meade dealer.

Alan

Very interesting. I got mine quite a long while back, in the USA, before they had these problems, so it was probably a MK1. No way to check because I now have a 12T4 as replacement (better mainly in terms of eye relief).

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alan potts

alan potts

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Micheal,

I am sure you Ben and myself have the older ones.

We first got onto this when I saw a new and old 8.8mm at my mates the Dealer, the outer cases are a little different and so too are the boxes, no longer bomb proof. It was this that got Danny to ask questions. If I recall the 14mm UWA was around 170 pounds, maybe a bit more, I forget. The newer one was on sale when I was in England at Tele-House for 116 pounds, this was when I bought the 5.5mm UWA which was 113 quid, don't really see how they can be the same.

The other thing is I believe Maxvisions were selling some of UWA's in the clear out which to me suggests the other were made elsewhere as Meade could not pay the bill.

Alan

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alan potts

alan potts

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Posted

Nice one Avtar, you will like that I am sure, I bought mine from Damo over in N Ireland, very nice eyepiece. I am just going to try my new 12mm, the first clear night for almost a month, its like living in England.

Alan

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russ.will

russ.will

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Posted

Nice one Avtar, you will like that I am sure, I bought mine from Damo over in N Ireland, very nice eyepiece. I am just going to try my new 12mm, the first clear night for almost a month, its like living in England.

Alan

Al, we really don't need reminding... :(

Russell

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