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15mm Panoptic

Moonshane

By Moonshane
in Discussions - Eyepieces

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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Thanks to a previously used seller on UK Astro Buy and Sell, I am now the delighted owner of an as new 15mm Televue Panoptic. I have wanted to try one of these for many years but they rarely seem to come up for sale. 

Although I don't wear glasses to observe, I have in my old age begun to appreciate easy eye placement and prefer to see the edge of field without having to struggle. The 60-70 field therefore seems to suit my eyes although I also enjoyed plossls I previously owned.  For some reason, my eyes seem averse to the ultrawide fields (Delos/Ethos and newer Naglers) on the moon as I get weird false colour, but this does not occur with my Delites, Radians or Panoptics. The 15mm TV plossl was about at the limit of comfort in terms of eye relief and this eyepiece has an approximately similar eye relief of 10mm but reports online (e.g. http://www.scopereviews.com/page4.html)suggest it 'feels' like less if you want to see the whole field. I was therefore keen to see just how tight the eye relief is. Holding it to my eye in the hand, I am pleased to say that the whole field can easily be seen without too much 'lash contact' and therefore it passed this first test. :icon_biggrin: Furthermore, I find that 15mm is a perfect for solar observing with my Ha PST stage 2 mod (67x) and 120mm ED with wedge (60x) and I missed it, having sold my 15mm plossl and relying on my 17.3 Delos and 11mm Delite.

In the hand it's a typically weighty eyepiece from Televue and oozes great build quality. It's about the same size as my old 20mm TV plossl and considering it has a slightly larger field than a 12mm T4 Nagler (which incidentally, so does the 20mm TV Plossl!), it is small, light and compact.

My version is the slimmer unit (there's another version which has a slightly wider 'waist like the other Panoptics) and I am really looking forward to using it. 

I'll report back my findings in due course but have high hopes it will be just what I expect.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Shane,

Many congratulation Shane, all these new eyepieces being bought, You, John and Derek I am feeling left out.

I have never seen one of those before, I believe they have stopped making it, some time since. Was there any reason that anyone knows of for it being shelved.

I imagine it is a similar design to the Meade S5k 16mm or rather visa versa, many have said the ER is a little tight on the Meade.

Alan

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ghostdance

ghostdance

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Congrats Shane!

I have the ' fat boy' version and from what I remember, it's a lovely ep....and one night soon, I hope to have its company again if the cloud gods permit. I'm running out of sheep tho, so I guess it'll be fingers next for the propitiatory chop. I don't think the sheep work anymore.... :(

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Mak the Night

Mak the Night

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Here's the 'fatter' one for comparison

353444-1.jpg

This is the first time I've seen a picture of one of these. I must say that I find my 19mm Pan a lovely eyepiece to use, the eye relief and overall ergonomics of the Panoptics I've used are exceptional though IMO. The 19mm Pan was the first TV wide angle eyepiece I ever bought (I previously just had TV Barlows and Plossls) and it quite frankly amazed me. I bet the 15mm is just as good.

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Mak the Night

Mak the Night

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I am actually quite glad that I got the slimmer one as it seems as though this is easier to nestle your eye into and thus the shortish eye relief matters not.

Actually, that's the first picture I've ever seen of the slimmer 15mm. It looks more like the 25mm TV Plossl than the 20mm TV Plossl in size to me though from that picture. I think it does need the universal eyepiece size comparison standard can of beans! lol

EDIT: Soup will do.

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DRT

DRT

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I only have one Panoptic - the 41mm - but seem to be developing a lust for more :rolleyes:

I did have a 24mm which someone very involved in this thread now owns but the lower power 2" versions seem to be calling me!

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alan potts

alan potts

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I have 3 of them ( 24mm, 35mm and 41mm) and use all in different scopes, I always wanted the 27mm as it is the maximum, just about, on the Sc with a .63 reducer. Those who own it talk very highly of it. The 35mm is about my most used eyepiece over my scope range.

Alan

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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I only have one Panoptic - the 41mm - but seem to be developing a lust for more :rolleyes:

I did have a 24mm which someone very involved in this thread now owns but the lower power 2" versions seem to be calling me!

LOL I am so pleased you agreed to sell this to me mate. I use it more than my 26mm Nagler in my fracs. I believe the 27mm Panoptic is a beaut but too close to the 24mm/26mm N for me.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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I have just tried the 15mm Panoptic in my 120mm ED vs my 17.3mm Delos. Not perfect conditions of course so I really only looked at two illustrative examples (the moon and the double cluster). The results were basically as expected.

Eye relief is actually a lot better than I feared and confirm my initial thoughts of the eyepiece in the hand. It definitely feels more comfortable to use (i.e. to see the whole field) than what I recall of my old 15mm Televue Plossl. This was a pleasant surprise to me and if you don't were glasses and want to cost effectively increase the field of an existing plossl then I'd definitely recommend this eyepiece if you can find one. 

Double Cluster

The sharpness across the field on both eyepieces was pretty much the same and stars were sharp to the field stop and I could detect no apparent differences other than the field/slight difference in magnification. The Delos was slightly more comfortable to use but there was not much in it.

Moon

This was the main object (as well as the sun) for which I bought this eyepiece and the results again were exactly as I expected, the Panoptic providing exactly the characters I hoped for. The view was really neutral in tone and uniformly light with no false colour other than a slim greenish/yellow line off axis on the limb. There was no edge distortion.

In comparison, the 17.3mm Delos whilst sharp and clean I detail, demonstrated the 'blinking' false colour which manifests itself as I moved my eye around the field. There was the expected  thin blue ring of fire on the field stop and slightly more false colour on the limb than the Panoptic.

In general terms, these two eyepieces are just as good as each other with the exception (for me) that on the moon the Delos (along with my 8mm Delos, 26mm Nagler and old 13mm Ethos (but not my old 12mm/16mm T2 Naglers and 9mm/7mm T1 Naglers) they are not my eyepiece of choice at all for the reasons above. In terms of my refractors, balance is a big issue as I use a Giro mount and therefore I suspect that the 24/15mm Panoptic along with my 6-3mm Nagler zoom will become mainstay eyepieces, requiring no rebalance.

As an aside, I used the 15mm on the sun today in my PSTAL stage two mod and the views were superb and as good as the 17.3mm Delos used previously but again with the improved balance.

I am very happy indeed and will add a bit more to the thread as I go.  I don't think that I'll be getting rid of anything quite yet though.......

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