4mm with good fov

[glennbech]

The FL of my My Megrez 90 is 621mm and I am looking for a good 4mm to get close to the upper magnification limit. Can anyone recommend a good eyepiece in the price range 100GBP give or take some? I just discovered the fun of wide fov's than 50 that I am used to. So, a larger FOV would be nice!

[Fozzie]

Afternoon..

Explore Scientific do a 4.7mm 82deg EP for around 110GBP, available across Europe too.. FLO also have a 4mm Nirvana on sale for £109.. both great for the price point.

I've the ES4.7mm and it's a nice EP, however I'm favouring better eye relief so don't use it all too often.

After that SH naglers are probably upwards of £150..

Hope that helps..

Ta

Fozzie

[AndyH]

4mm?

Off the top of my head, I can think of two at the moment ....

Skywatcher brand of the William Optics UWA. Are they called Nirvana's ? 82° afov. Perhaps a few £ over your £100 limit?

Various different brands, but originally the Burgess/TMB Planetary. 58° afov. I think these are around the £40 mark?

 

Andy.

[glennbech]

The televue radian 4mm is also above my price point, and "only" has 58 fov. Does anyone have experience with that one?

[John]

I currently have 4 mm Radian which has a 60 degree AFoV. Very nice eyepiece. I've also previously had a WO UWAN / Nirvana 4mm which was also excellent - more AFoV but less eye relief. My 4mm Radian sits between a 4.7mm Ethos and a 3.5mm Pentax XW.

Oddly, there isn't a lot of other choice in the wide field 4mm category.

 

[John]

PS: First Light Optics have a 4mm Nirvana on offer at £109:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/clearance/skywatcher-nirvana-uwa-82-degree-fov.html

 

[AndyH]

I had a look at an xls spreadsheet of eyepieces made up by Don Pensack, over on Cloudy nights and as  you say John, the choices are few & far between at 4mm, at over 50° afov.

 

Andy.

[scarp15]

TeleVue just might  add to their DeLite line, introducing additional focal lengths for 2017. Had been rumoured to happen this year, a 4mm DeLite may become a logical addition next time. At least I am hoping so because this would be an eyepiece I will be interested in, particularly for use with my 76mm 480F/L refractor.  At least provides an opportunity to try and save up. 

[glennbech]

Hmmm. That Es 4.7 looks a bit tempting. Here is the field of view for M42 in my Megrez 90. That looks like a pretty good fit! 

 

[N3ptune]

I have the ES 4.7 since yesterday, it's a great eyepiece for high magnification, I had incredible views of the moon at 212x and even at 425x (Sharp!), nice view of Jupiter also at 212x (with telescope has in my signature). I don't wear glasses so the eye relief is ok for me, it's comfortable, BUT my eye is close the the lens so I have to heat the piece to prevent dew formation.

That's the only down part of it to my modest experience.

The Celestron Xcel 5mm with 60 degrees has a far better Eye relief but overall the ES is far superior in term of visual quality and it's sealed to water and dust <--  these are really attractive features for me.

 I read you can use the ES 4.7 with glasses but you will not be able to see the entire 82 degrees FOV. --> but Is it the end of the world ?  maybe not.

It's a great eyepiece definitely, I had a lot of fun using it yesterday. For the price I think it's a pretty good eyepiece. 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[glennbech]

Thanks! I do not wear glasses, so that will not be a problem for me. Thanks for the heads up on the dew! The 4.7mm will give a 132x with my Megrez 90. It leaves some margin to the 175x rule of thumb, making it quite useful i think. 

Glad to hear that you got to try it right away

[Dave In Vermont]

The Baader 3.5mm 68° Hyperion comes to mind.

Dave

[Ruud]

+1 for the Skywatcher Nirvana / WO UWAN.

The eye relief of the ES 82° is too short for me, or my eyelashes are too long. The eyelens is recessed too deeply. Otherwise it is a fine eyepiece.

[bomberbaz]

Get a vixen lvw 8mm and Barlow it up, that is what I interned doing although I have a opowemate

 

[glennbech]

Quote

The eye relief of the ES 82° is too short for me, or my eyelashes are too long. The eyelens is recessed too deeply. Otherwise it is a fine eyepiece.

I ended up on on the ES 82, and received it yesterday. My initial reactions are mixed. First of all it gave me a "sick" Lunar image with my refractor. It stretched the entire nearly full moon to the full 82 degrees. A real "holy c*p" moment for me, used to stock Skywatcher eye pieces

After playing around with it for an hour or so I realize that it is an eye piece that takes some practice. Head and eye placement is important to avoid kidney beaning and eye lashes in the fov. After some time I got a lot better at it. 

I am a novice observer and no EP expert. Is this is an inherent problem with short focal lengthis and large fovs?

 

[John]

Using ultra and hyper wide eyepieces definitely takes a little practice. They use some optical tricks to obtain a very wide but sharp field of view which some folks find are not to their taste.

Once you get used to them though, viewing through a "normal" AFoV can seem a bit claustrophobic !

 

 

[alan potts]

To echo John, I too have the 4mm Radian and it is an eyepiece I have keep purely because of the 4mm shortage, even this is no longer made. I did write a review of the 4.7mm ExSc against a TeleVue eyepiece or it may have been the Pentax Xw 5mm, maybe the latter, it is in the Members equipment section over a year ago.

[N3ptune]

To my observations, the ES 4.7 has a sweetspot but it's not possible to see the entire 82 degrees at that specific distance. It's far enough for my lashes to be off the lenses but the body has to be stable. On that spot I can move the head around to see in various directions inside the eyepiece, enjoying the large 82 degrees FOV.

it can be used like that.