First light 41mm Panoptic

[Pig]

1 minute ago, Highburymark said:

Glad to hear you're enjoying the new EP  Shaun. I love the views with the Pan 35 in my SCT. SCTs are often dismissed as delivering mushy stars, but when paired with the right eyepieces (and compared at equal magnifications to other scopes) they can deliver great sharpness. For me, the low power Panoptics and C8s were made for each other.

Yes, I couldn't agree more

[admin]

@Ben the Ignorant, @Louis D, I think the OP is politely hinting he isn't looking for buying advice. He has already chosen and purchased an eyepiece and is sharing his experience with it  

[Ben the Ignorant]

2 hours ago, John said:

Why do we always drag money into it ?

Because we don't print it ourselves.

[Ben the Ignorant]

47 minutes ago, admin said:

@Ben the Ignorant, @Louis D, I think the OP is politely hinting he isn't looking for buying advice. He has already chosen and purchased an eyepiece and is sharing his experience with it  

I know he's not looking for buying advice, since he has already bought it, duh! But he's not the only one reading this, and others who would like the same kind of field/focal length are interested in comparable gear that costs less.

I thought that was self-evident. How could you forget the rest of the audience? And since when are gear comparisons not welcome? All forums are replete with them.

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, admin said:

@Ben the Ignorant, @Louis D, I think the OP is politely hinting he isn't looking for buying advice. He has already chosen and purchased an eyepiece and is sharing his experience with it  

My apologies for trying to help Ben the Ignorant and others find lower cost alternatives to what Pig is using at 40/41mm.

[John]

23 minutes ago, Louis D said:

My apologies for trying to help Ben the Ignorant and others find lower cost alternatives to what Pig is using at 40/41mm.

No problem with that but why hijack Shauns thread about his experiences with the Panoptic 41 to do it ?

You two ended up having a discussion between yourselves that was off the original topic. If Ben is interested in an eyepiece of this specification but does not want to spend what the Tele Vue option costs then he can start another thread asking about lower cost alternatives.

 

 

[alan potts]

12 hours ago, Louis D said:

I love my decloaked 40mm Meade 5000 SWA.  Basically sharp to the edge, easy to view through with eyeglasses, no noticeable vignetting, and a sharp fieldstop.

I have zero desire to try the 41mm Pan.  I do have some desire to try the 31mm Nagler T5 since the 30mm ES-82 is not sharp to the edge.

Before I bought the 31mm Nagler I had a 30mm Meade UWA and I found that very good indeed, it just depends how fast is the scope you wish to use it on, It was fine in my SC Meade 12 inch but did start to show issues at F 5.3. I am of the opinon though not all agree, that the Meade versions of these eyepieces are better than the ExSc offerings. I had the 4.7mm S5000 Meade and later tested the ExSc 4.7mm, I was most disappointed, though not side by side my memory was the Meade was better.

[Pig]

Guys, I thank you for your input but you have gone way off topic as Admin and John have politely pointed out ...

I have already owned several of the eyepieces you mention and did not prefer them over my current eyepiece collection.
I would have mentioned in the title and my first post in this thread if I was after cost related alternatives.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great to hear you are enjoying the Pan 41! I have recently seen a Panoptic 41mm going second-hand, and I must say I am tempted to replace my LVW 42mm by the Panoptic. Both the LVW 42mm and the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" perform really well in the C8, and they do provide really crisp views. It would be interesting to see how the Pan 41 and the LVW 42 compare, head to head. I like the LVW 42, but it is not quite as comfortable as my very first 2" EP, the TMB Paragon 40mm, which I foolishly sold after getting the 31T5 Panzerfaust. Does the Pan 41 have any blackout or kidney-beaning issues? The LVW occasionally does, whereas the Paragon was near perfect in this respect (it did show a little bit of field curvature).

[admin]

10 hours ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

I know he's not looking for buying advice, since he has already bought it, duh!

Then please don't hijack his thread to discuss alternatives. 

[Mr Spock]

On 05/02/2017 at 10:41, Pig said:

I have always experienced difficulties when trying to view crisp stars through an SCT (I didn't realise this lack of star crispness with my previous SCT's as I hadn't tried a refractor back then ) any how this changed last night when I used the 41 mm Panoptic.

It's strange how SCTs appear more eyepiece dependant than you would imagine. Perhaps it's something in the design of the Panoptic and other similar eyepieces which give them an advantage?

I'm pleased its working well for you - I'd like to try one myself. Though I'm happy with my 42mm LVW and the other LVWs I have, switching to Panoptics for the longer focal lengths is a tempting thought.

 

[RayD]

Looks great thanks for that.  I currently only have 82° ES so will look in to this as a definite option.

[Pig]

4 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Great to hear you are enjoying the Pan 41! I have recently seen a Panoptic 41mm going second-hand, and I must say I am tempted to replace my LVW 42mm by the Panoptic. Both the LVW 42mm and the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" perform really well in the C8, and they do provide really crisp views. It would be interesting to see how the Pan 41 and the LVW 42 compare, head to head. I like the LVW 42, but it is not quite as comfortable as my very first 2" EP, the TMB Paragon 40mm, which I foolishly sold after getting the 31T5 Panzerfaust. Does the Pan 41 have any blackout or kidney-beaning issues? The LVW occasionally does, whereas the Paragon was near perfect in this respect (it did show a little bit of field curvature).

Michael, I considered the LVW also as the SLV I used to own performed fantastically. I find the Panoptic very comfortable and experienced no kidneybeaning. I was also surprised by the blackness of the background. I did not try my ex T31 in an 8" but I did in my ex 9.25" and it was a tad fluffy. However the focal length of the 9.25 was 400mm longer than the 8" thus even more magnification for it to cope with.

Shaun

[John]

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

It's strange how SCTs appear more eyepiece dependant than you would imagine. Perhaps it's something in the design of the Panoptic and other similar eyepieces which give them an advantage?

 

 

Maybe it's something to to with the SCT primary being very fast ?. I think they (most anyway) are around F/2 and the secondary around F/20 ?. An F/10 newtonian would be pretty tolerant of mis-collimation with a large "sweet spot" wheras the SCT's seem to need the collimation to be pretty accurate to give of their best. Possibly all these factors are linked ?

[jetstream]

Sure glad the 41 Panoptic is performing so well for you Shaun, the EP seems to be "made" for SCT's and its performance is highlighting this I think. I would be real curious how the Veil looks though this eyepiece and your scope, my guess is it will be superb...

[Pig]

2 hours ago, jetstream said:

Sure glad the 41 Panoptic is performing so well for you Shaun, the EP seems to be "made" for SCT's and its performance is highlighting this I think. I would be real curious how the Veil looks though this eyepiece and your scope, my guess is it will be superb...

Cheers Gerry, I have an OIII I will check it out for you and report back ...

[YKSE]

Congratulations on the big aquisition  Shaun.

2 hours ago, John said:

Maybe it's something to to with the SCT primary being very fast ?. I think they (most anyway) are around F/2 and the secondary around F/20 ?. An F/10 newtonian would be pretty tolerant of mis-collimation with a large "sweet spot" wheras the SCT's seem to need the collimation to be pretty accurate to give of their best. Possibly all these factors are linked ?

Standard SCT (C5 to C8?) have f/2 and f/5 mirrors, quite fast actually, much worse than a f10 Newt, the compound system of SCT make mixed abberations in the edge in these standard SCT, all eyepieces (especially wider ones) don't work as welll as to EPs with SWA AFOV.

Maybe we stilll remember an old  S&T test that 30mm Moonfish rated as best EP vs some much supposedly-to-be much better EPs?

[Pig]

Thank you Yong  It is looking promising outside at the moment and I will ask the other half to help me lift the eyepiece into the diagonal later !!! 

[John]

11 minutes ago, YKSE said:

Maybe we stilll remember an old  S&T test that 30mm Moonfish rated as best EP vs some much supposedly-to-be much better EPs?

I do remember that review. I was a bit confused by the result especially having actually owned the Japanese eyepiece that the Moonfish was cloned from

Nice eyepiece at F/10 but the worst astigmatism I've ever seen in my F/6.5 refractor

Anyway, thats off topic so not relevant to this thead about the lovely Panoptic 41

[DRT]

Gentlemen, please feel free to jump aboard the Panoptic 41 Lifeboat...