TV Panoptic 41mm V Explore Scientific 68° 40mm

[adamw]

Thoughts on these 2 EP’s please, I cannot decide which to buy. It will be used it in a 6” f8 frac. The TV is around £380 from a uk supplier and the ES will come in at around £230 from TS in Germany. Is the TV worth the extra and is the ES any good? 

[alan potts]

There is a review that I knocked out in the equipment section of the Panoptic 41mm and the Meade 40mm SWA which is the same elements. 

I had both for a good while.

Alan.

[John]

At F/8 I would think that the differences between the two will be mininal, if even noticable.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

not that i quite understand the need of 40mm 68 degree eye piece in your 6" frac Adam.You will be better off with a 30mm 82 degree EP in likes of the same explore scientific for the same £230. that 82 degree EP will give you much larger FOV then 40mm,will be also a good notch ligther then 40mm,you will have darker background.

[damnut]

I have a 152mm meade petzval and have stuck to around 30mm . Having used both the Nag 31 and the Celestron Axiom. The celestron was a great performer.

[alan potts]

Dude, with the tube,

I tend to agree with you choice of 30mm for the 6 inch, I didn't read the equipment list. However a 30mm UWA will not give a larger FOV as you say, there is not much in but the 40mm/41mm SWA is a bigger FOV.

Alan

[Dude_with_the_tube]

Dude, with the tube,

I tend to agree with you choice of 30mm for the 6 inch, I didn't read the equipment list. However a 30mm UWA will not give a larger FOV as you say, there is not much in but the 40mm/41mm SWA is a bigger FOV.

Alan

you sure about that? According to my calculations for my F9 6" frac. 40mm with 68 deg will give me 1.18 deg,where 30mm 82 deg will give me 1.84 deg FOV. obviously Adams scope is F8,as such figures will be different,by means of even more wider FOV on both,but still 30mm 82 will be wider.

[adamw]

I am not sure i  like really wide angled ep's. I have a couple of sky panoramas with 82° fov and have also looked through a 31mm nagler and i find it a bit uncomfortable trying to move my eye around. I have looked through an LVW 42mm and remember that as being very comfortable. I was thinking 68° with a longer focal length might suit me better.

[russ.will]

I can agree with that point of view. I don't so much look at all of the extremes of view of my ES100s, as use it to remove the field stop from view. To me it's about a more natural view, such as you would get with your own eyes, NOT snapping my eyeball tendons to look 50deg left or right.

Still if you can live without that (and who can't?) you'll save a tonne of cash! FWIW, I also can't see the Panoptic being worth a whole extra (very good) EP's worth of cash at F8. Then again, I'd buy the ES in a Maxvision cloak and save a whole lot more as it's only about £130 delivered due to the Euro weakness.

@ Dude - Alan's right. As you say, the scope is irrelevant, but I'm getting a figure of 1.23deg for the 30mm UWA and 1.36deg for my 40mm SWA in my LX200 - 10% wider TFOV with the SWA.

Russell

[alan potts]

I was not trying to score points I just didn't want anyone getting the wrong end of the stick, after all you could have missed the A in AFOV in which case what you said would have been correct.

Scope focal length changes nothing the ratio stays the same, otherwise to some extent why would they even make a 40mm 68 degree. It is having that collection of fine orthos that threw you.

BTW the 42mm Vixen is another very good eyepiece and a few on site have these and speak very highly about them.

alan

[Dude_with_the_tube]

not quite getting the point of what my "collection" of orthos  has to do with this topic or my answer? I dont think this is appropriate comment coming from a forum moderator as i have not made any comments about your equipment,posts or reviews.However,there have been a few   "comments" made by yourself towards myself and other members of this forum what i dont consider appropriate.

As such,i dont think this is the right forum for me to stay any longer.

Clear skies.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

not quite getting the point of what my "collection" of orthos  has to do with this topic or my answer? I dont think this is appropriate comment coming from a forum moderator as i have not made any comments about your equipment,posts or reviews.However,there have been a few   "comments" made by yourself towards myself and other members of this forum what i dont consider appropriate.

As such,i dont think this is the right forum for me to stay any longer.

Clear skies.

I think there is a confusion here. Alan is right that the 40 or 41 mm 68 deg EP has the larger true FOV, simply because it has the larger field stop than a 30-31mm 82 deg. There seems to be an error in your calculation of the FOV of the 40mm 68 deg in a 6" F/9, which should be 2.06 deg according to my calculation.

I am not sue what your collection of orthos has to do with anithing, but I am sure Alan did not mean this in a negative way

[alan potts]

I only meant that with having such an extensive collection of orthoscopic which are normally shorter eyepieces your attention is normally at the other end of the focal length scale, I was not trying to point scope and if you meant what you said I for one would miss your input. It is very easy to make small mistakes I have done it myself.