Nagler 9mm vs es82 8.8mm

[planetman83]

Hello guys, I own the nagler 9mm T6 for a few years now. The Explore Scientific 8.8mm came to my hands also and I wanted to compare these two eyepieces.

Ι own a 16" f/4.5 but the last time I couldn't bring it with me so I tested the eyepieces with a 10" f/4.8 Orion Optics and a 8" f/6 Skywatcher. I want to tell you my findings and I want to hear you also. I switched the two eyepieces many times and in deep sky the images are identical. We were 3 observers and we couldn't make out the difference. MAYBE and I say MAYBE the nagler shows more black sky but I am not sure, only one observer said so. The same observer also said that the nagler has better field at the edges but the same observer couldn't find which eyepiece was which when he didn't know what he was seeing through.

The big difference I saw and it is very evident is at bright targets such as the moon. Through the nagler the moon is BLUE at the edges but through the ES the moon was without any colour aberrations. And this is what it seems strange to me. The nagler costs the double money.

 

Do you have any experience with these two eyepieces?

[John]

I've owned a Nagler 9mm T6 and used it with a 10" Orion Optics F/4.8 newtonian for a while but I can't say that I ever noticed that it coloured the Moon blue at the edges. Naglers do have a thin bright rim of colour around their field stops known as the "ring of fire" (a bit extreme !) but I've noticed that around other 82 degree eyepiece designs as well. Was the blue rim around the field stop of the eyepiece rather than the edges / limb of the Moon ?

Either way, I'd expect the ES 8.8 to be pretty close in performance to the Nagler. Most reports I read comparing ES 82's put them either very close or pretty much the same as Nagler performance.

Welcome to the forum by the way and thanks for the interesting report

 

[planetman83]

The nagler shows the moon  and every other target (also planets and stars) blue if you put the target exactly at the edge of the field of the eyepiece. The difference is that the moon is so big so you can see it so easily. The same happens with the 16mm t5 nagler which is an eyepiece that I love. Obviously the same happens with all naglers. Or my naglers have some kind of problem? Less possible.

[John]

As I said, I've seen the bright ring around the field edge of Naglers and other ultra wide field eyepieces and it can appear a sort of pale blue colour. I have a 31mm Nagler and it is certainly visible with that one but it's not an eyepiece that I'd observe the moon with anyway.

I doubt there is any problem with your Naglers - they are all tested by Tele Vue before being released for sale.

 

[planetman83]

What seems strange to me is that the Explore Scientific has NONE of this colour aberration, ZERO, not even a clue. For nagler having this colour aberration isn't a disadvantage for the eyepiece? I' m just saying.

 

I am going to sell one of these two and I have to decide which one. Of course I am going to try them on the 16" f/4.5

[jetstream]

My 18mm ES is very much a match for Naglers, it does show the same blue "ring of fire" as the Naglers and if I put the moon right on the field stop it colors blue in both brands.

[planetman83]

I tested all my eyepieces and I found out that:

WITH Blue ring of fire: nagler 7mm, 9mm, 13mm, 16mm, 20mm, ES82 30mm

WITHOUT: nagler 5mm, ES82 8.8mm

 

So the only nagler without the blue ring is the 5mm. I am wondering why some eyepieces have this thing and some of them haven't, even of the same brand.

[John]

21 hours ago, planetman83 said:

I tested all my eyepieces and I found out that:

WITH Blue ring of fire: nagler 7mm, 9mm, 13mm, 16mm, 20mm, ES82 30mm

WITHOUT: nagler 5mm, ES82 8.8mm

 

So the only nagler without the blue ring is the 5mm. I am wondering why some eyepieces have this thing and some of them haven't, even of the same brand.

Interesting results but my Nagler Type 6 5mm showed the blue ring around the field stop in just the same way as the other T6's that I had at the time did.

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Hello Planetman83 and welcome to SGL. I have used many EPs over the years including the TeleVue Ethos 8mm, 13mm and 21mm. About 18 months ago I changed my collection to the ES 82 degree range and I now have the 4.7mm, 6.7mm, 8.8mm, 11mm 14mm, 18mm and the 24mm but this 68 degrees.

I really like this range of EPs and they work very well in my 12" Revelation Dob, 8" Orion VX8, 6" Orion VX6L and my 4" Astro Tech APO frac. The only EP that I have added recently was the Skywatcher 20mm Myraid.

I find the ES 8.8mm, 11mm and 14mm very good when I am observing DSOs so I agree with your findings.

When it comes to viewing the Sun, Moon and the Planets I use Binoviewers and standard Plossls which seem to do the work very well.

[Louis D]

If I recall correctly, my 10mm Delos and 7mm Pentax XW also show this blue ring on bright objects at the field stop.  I think I may have also seen it with my 30mm ES-82 as well.  However, I can't recall ever seeing it with my older 14mm or 5.2mm Pentax XLs or 9mm Vixen LV.  I'm guessing it's an artifact of newer negative/positive designs reaching for ever wider fields.  For another data point, I've never seen it in any Panoptic or ES-68 eyepieces, which are strictly positive designs.

[BGazing]

I used 8.8 and 4.7 ES 82 with Borg 71FL this evening, damp and cold, grabbed that rough SW stock diagonal just to have a quick look at the Moon. 8.8 was more comfortable but it also showed yellow fringe of the Moon globe. 4.7 showed none. I guess there is some lateral color in 8.8 as well...or it depends on the combination of eyepiece and scope.

[spaceboy]

I have owned a 9mm nagler and currently have an ES 8.8mm and while I never got to try them out side by side I would say from memory the ES doesn't perform as well as the nagler. They both have their pros and cons. The nagler has that nasty hard eyecup but then the ES has short eye relief due to the recessed lens so I find it needs to have it's nice soft eyecup always rolled down anyway or your not taking in the field stop. The nagler has a slightly warm cast to the stars and the ring of fire (never noticed blue ?). The ES has slightly more neutral colour to the stars but suffers from lateral colour on outer most bright stars (possibly you got the nag and the ES mixed up ??) The nag is far more contrasted and deals with light scatter far better than the ES 8.8 which suffers terribly on brighter objects and has had ES contacted by several owners state side to find a solution. (apparently you need to O ring flock the inside of the barrel). Both have excellent build quality and I personally like the whole purged thing so as to not have to worry about fungi or dust making it's way between the elements, but the nagler is slightly lighter, compact and a traditional straight barrel which is only let down by an under cut. The nagler is far better corrected towards the edge than the ES82's are.

I'm not knocking the ES range as I have almost all the ES82° and 100° eyepieces and as good as they are for the money they in truth are not as good as naglers or ethos in my personal opinion. At the end of the day the ES are an excellent mid range eyepiece that suit a budget and are well built, offering very good correction in all but the fastest of scopes. While differences in views can be subtle between the two eyepieces this hobbies gains rely heavily on subtle differences and a slightly darker background offered up by better contrast in an eyepiece can make all the difference if you sit looking at that object for a while.

[Ben the Ignorant]

This is not a comparo between Explore and Tele Vue, but between a 26mm/82° Tele Vue and a 24mm/82° Meade, seems to be worth mentioning here. Another observer and I tried them on a Celestron 11 for long on many bright and dim targets; we could see no difference in aberrations, but the Tele Vue had an ever-so-slightly darker sky, which made detecting very faint things a tiny little bit less difficult.

The other guy concluded he'd sell the Tele Vue to finance a similar but less expensive eyepiece (probably an Explore), and still have some spare money for something else.

[spaceboy]

4 hours ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

The other guy concluded he'd sell the Tele Vue to finance a similar but less expensive eyepiece (probably an Explore), and still have some spare money for something else.

This was exactly my reasoning for letting my 6 Naglers go which were replaced by both ES82° & ES100° eyepieces at little or no difference in overall cost. While the Naglers do perform that tiny bit better I have 10 almost as good eyepieces that offer me a totally different experience in the ES100° but still have a set of balancing fuss free 82° eyepieces.

I am very grateful for reviews and comparisons on SGL as the amount of kit on the market is quite mind boggling so it is nice to get some insight in to the differences of performance but I also believe that it can be easy to get carried away thinking you have to have the very best of this that and the other when in truth there is plenty of good quality astro gear to suit all budgets. I think we take it granted the level of kit we have available to us these days. You only have to consider the father of the Newtonian started of with a 33mm reflector.

[Ben the Ignorant]

It's worth mentioning (actually worth money) that the Meade 24mm/82° is a clone of the Maxvision 24/82 which sells for 35% of the price. I know because of a strangeness of business when I thought I was ordering the Maxvision two years ago, but received the Meade which is supposed to be worth almost thrice the cost. Don't ask me why it happened, I was too surprised and satisfied by the deal to question it.

It was not a mistake from the retailer, since the picture in their site had a hint of the bargain: the eyepiece was displayed with the typical Meade blue ring bearing "24mm" and "UWA". However, it was oriented to not show the "Meade" namebrand on purpose, but I didn't realize that. At the unboxing, imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a Meade. Check their shape, they're identical except for the engraved blue ring.

My Meade/Maxvision secret agent ninja masked imposter was not defective or used, when they are the ribbed cap leaves obvious dents in the rubber eyecup. It was simply sold for what it's really worth, which is a quarter of the Tele Vue 26/82's price. If I ever sell it, I will do so at the Maxvision price, and you have this, permanently stored in a server to testify I will.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

1 hour ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

It's worth mentioning (actually worth money) that the Meade 24mm/82° is a clone of the Maxvision 24/82 which sells for 35% of the price. I know because of a strangeness of business when I thought I was ordering the Maxvision two years ago, but received the Meade which is supposed to be worth almost thrice the cost. Don't ask me why it happened, I was too surprised and satisfied by the deal to question it.

It was not a mistake from the retailer, since the picture in their site had a hint of the bargain: the eyepiece was displayed with the typical Meade blue ring bearing "24mm" and "UWA". However, it was oriented to not show the "Meade" namebrand on purpose, but I didn't realize that. At the unboxing, imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a Meade. Check their shape, they're identical except for the engraved blue ring.

My Meade/Maxvision secret agent ninja masked imposter was not defective or used, when they are the ribbed cap leaves obvious dents in the rubber eyecup. It was simply sold for what it's really worth, which is a quarter of the Tele Vue 26/82's price. If I ever sell it, I will do so at the Maxvision price, and you have this, permanently stored in a server to testify I will.

your secret ninja got it completely wrong.

Meade is not a clone of but its the opposite way around,but not a CLONE! Maxvision is  a re branded Meade 5000 series 24mm UWA 82 deg,same happened to 16mm and 24mm Meade 68 degree eye pieces,they where re branded from Meade series 68 degree range.

Meade picked up a contract and produced certain amount of eye pieces of both 82 deg and 68 deg range,but the contractor pulled out and Meade was left with a load of eye pieces.These where re branded as Maxvisions and sold of for a reduced price.

Not to drag it out long,there is a topic about Maxvisions and they qualities/bad points etc in eye piece forum here.

[John]

I thought the Maxvisions were originally intended to be branded Meade and sold that way but Meade had a wobble, cancelled the order and eventually switched manufacturers leaving the original one with a load of unbranded SWA and UWA's so they branded them "Maxvision" and disposed of them through the ES / Bresser dealer network ?.

 

 

[Chris]

There was a lot of talk about this 2-3 years back and I heard the same story has John, I'm just not entirely sure what the wobble was about? Anyway I was happy at the time because it meant I could affored to own and enjoy a number of the MV's for a while, even the massive 40mm which was half the size of my face!

[Louis D]

I'm reposting my recollection of what went on a few years ago during a bunch of astronomy M&A from another thread:

When Jinghua (Explore Scientific) was not marketing their own line of lenses, they were mostly sold as Meade 68 and 82 series 5000 and Celestron Axiom eyepieces.  Then Meade and Celestron were bought by two different competing companies (Ningbo Sunny and Synta, respectively).  Around this same time, JOC (Jinghua/ES) then started marketing their eyepieces under the ES label.  That left Meade and Celestron (now owned by NS and Synta) looking for other companies to make their premium eyepieces, perhaps even in house.  I'm not really sure who makes them today.

So, Celestron starts marketing their Luminos line as if it is a drop in replacement for their Axiom (i.e., ES-82) line.  Initial reviews were less than positive.  Correction to the edge is not nearly as good as older JOC equivalents.  Excessive edge of field brightening has also been reported.  They do have decent eye relief, however, and cost significantly less.

Meade exited the 68 degree line entirely creating the ES Maxvision line inadvertently as a result.  I see many dealers still have the Meade 82 5000 eyepieces, so I can't say for certain that they've exited that line completely, though it might just be new old stock.  Either way, I see both 68 and 82 degree Maxvision eyepieces in the marketplace.  Rest assured, they are identical to the Meade equivalents.

Meade instead focused on the 100 degree market first with the XWA line that totally flopped.  It was considered overpriced and ugly, but technically sound.  Telescope Warehouse bought out the remaining stock of at least the 20mm ones.  Meade then brought out the MWA line which touted 20mm eye relief and 100 degee fields but delivered neither.  They have decent eye relief of around 13mm to 15mm and an actual AFOV of around 92 degrees.  Close, but no cigar on either account.  They are probably better performers than the Celestron Luminos, but they cost significantly more as well for those 10 extra degrees of field.

To be clear, though, Explore Scientific was started by former Meade Instruments Vice President of Brand Community Scott W. Roberts in 2008 and JOC later bought the controlling share of the company.  I believe Scott is still actively involved with the company which probably accounts for its range of well targeted products.