Upgrading my 32 mm 68° Panaview.

[Grump Martian]

My low power,widefield eyepiece is a Panaview 32 mm 68°. It performs surprisingly well on my refractors. But I feel that upgrading would improve my viewing experience. I once had a 35 mm Panoptic. Very sharp across the field but always felt that the sky was never totally black. I have recently mentioned that I may be able to get a 31 mm Nagler. But can I pull the trigger on 700 smackers? I also owner an ES 30 mm 82°. A lovely eyepiece. Does what it says on the box. Good sharpness across most of the field and very good contrast with black sky. I do like ES eyepieces and will continue with my higher power ones. But I let the 31 mm go due to it's heavy weight of approx 1.4 kgs.

Just wondering what eyepieces of 30mm would be a good upgrade.

[cajen2]

If you're trying to upgrade the view it gives, a 30mil UFF (APM, Celestron Ultima Edge, StellaLyra et al) is a great EP - sharp image and like it says on the tin, flat FOV. Not much improvement in FOV width though (70°).

[Mr Spock]

I use the StellaLyra 30mm UFF. No complaints at all. It has a lovely presentation of star images and is very sharp. It performs equally well in my 100mm f7.4 refractor and 12" f5 Newt.

[Guest]

You might be hard pressed to improve on the 30mm 80 degree ES.  

[PeterC65]

I've been looking for a really flat 30-35mm 68° eyepiece for some time and my conclusion is that the StellaLyra 30mm Ultra Flat Field 2" eyepiece from FLO is the best of the bunch. It gets rave reviews on SGL and according to the Ernest Eyepiece Review it is flatter (and considerably less expensive) than the equivalent Nagler and Panoptic, which are both flatter than the ES 82° 30mm.

I'd be replacing a Baader Hyperion Aspheric 36mm if I bought the StellaLyra and the only thing putting me off is the slightly shorter focal length, but as you mention, 36mm does make the sky a little too bright.

 

[cajen2]

And the SL UFF (and all its clones) is 550g, compared with 1410g for the ES - almost three times heavier. I have the Celestron version and it's one of my favourite EPs.

Edited April 28, 2023 by cajen2
Typo

[bosun21]

The SL 30mm UFF is far superior to the ES equivalent and a good bit cheaper into the bargain. As you say there’s many great reviews from respected individuals. You can’t go wrong Peter.

[bosun21]

40 minutes ago, Mike Q said:

You might be hard pressed to improve on the 30mm 80 degree ES.  

The SL/ Celestron/APM are all superior to the ES 30mm.

[Guest]

Just now, bosun21 said:

The SL/ Celestron/APM are all superior to the ES 30mm.

I have yet to see either of those. 

[Grump Martian]

Thanks for the replies. Very positive reviews for the Celestron indeed. Even if the opportunity comes up to get the Nagler,I could never justify it in current circumstances. The ES 82° is very good, but differculty with the weight. Celestron does look a good option. The Celestron 82° look uncomfortable for eye placement and nose position.

[Grump Martian]

Just an after thought. There was a 30 mm Skywatcher Aero 60° does anyone know if this is similar to the Celestron 30 mm 68°?

[Mr Spock]

Another thing to look out for is the price of these 30mm 'clones':

StellaLyra £179
Celestron £219
APM £219
Altair £185 (doesn't have the same internal blackening)

With the same eyepiece for £40 less, the SL looks a bargain 

 

[cajen2]

45 minutes ago, Grump Martian said:

Just an after thought. There was a 30 mm Skywatcher Aero 60° does anyone know if this is similar to the Celestron 30 mm 68°?

If you mean the UFF, I have no idea. The Celestron in question is the Ultima Edge and it's 70° FOV.

[cajen2]

38 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Another thing to look out for is the price of these 30mm 'clones':

StellaLyra £179
Celestron £219
APM £219
Altair £185 (doesn't have the same internal blackening)

With the same eyepiece for £40 less, the SL looks a bargain 

 

Ah, but the Celestron is a lot prettier! 😉😆

[PeterC65]

1 hour ago, Grump Martian said:

Just an after thought. There was a 30 mm Skywatcher Aero 60° does anyone know if this is similar to the Celestron 30 mm 68°?

If you mean the Aero ED 30mm, then as I understand it, this is a different eyepiece design from the APM UFF, Celestron Ultima Edge, StellaLyra UFF 30mm design. It is mid ranking in terms of its flatness. I believe it is available under the Lacerta branding. I was considering the Aero ED 35mm which is of the same design as the 30mm (and the 40mm), but less flat than its stablemates and even harder to find.

 

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

It gets rave reviews on SGL and according to the Ernest Eyepiece Review it is flatter (and considerably less expensive) than the equivalent Nagler and Panoptic, which are both flatter than the ES 82° 30mm.

I can't speak for the 31mm Nagler or 35mm Panoptic, but my 30mm ES-82 is flatter than my 27mm Panoptic.  I can't detect any defocus due to field curvature in the former, while there is a bit in the latter.  The 30mm APM UFF is flat of field as well.

My big issue with the 30mm ES-82 is severe chromatic aberration of the exit pupil (CAEP) at the edges.  The visual effect is to split Jupiter into slightly separated red and blue copies in the last 10% of the field.  The whole point to having an 82 degree eyepiece for me is to allow more drift time to observe an object in an undriven scope, and this optic aberration ruins the usefulness of the extra field over the 30mm APM UFF which has perfect spectral alignment at the edge.

If you look straight at the center and keep the edge in peripheral vision, you won't notice the CAEP in the 30mm ES-82, so it may not matter depending your viewing style.

You can see the CAEP manifesting itself as a rainbow circle in the AFOV image of the 30mm ES-82 below:

[Don Pensack]

I compared the 30mm APM UltraFlatField, 31mm Baader Hyperion, 30mm ES 82°, 31mm TeleVue Nagler and 30mm Pentax XW.

I kept the 30mm APM.

It's available now under several labels.

For purchasers in the UK, the StellaLyra UFF is a no-brainer.

Highly recommended.  It has superb contrast in its focal length range and a truly flat field.

It's usable with glasses, the field stop diameter is 36.3mm.

[Alan White]

11 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

I compared the 30mm APM UltraFlatField, 31mm Baader Hyperion, 30mm ES 82°, 31mm TeleVue Nagler and 30mm Pentax XW.

I kept the 30mm APM.

It's available now under several labels.

For purchasers in the UK, the StellaLyra UFF is a no-brainer.

Highly recommended.  It has superb contrast in its focal length range and a truly flat field.

It's usable with glasses, the field stop diameter is 36.3mm.

Fully agree on its a no brainier Don, the 30 UFF is a stocking eyepiece that happens to be a super price too.
I displaced a Panoptic 27 with the 30 UFF in APM clothing sometime ago.

 

[Louis D]

9 hours ago, Alan White said:

I displaced a Panoptic 27 with the 30 UFF in APM clothing sometime ago.

Same here.  The Panoptic might have a hair's breadth tighter stars on axis, but that's about it to recommend it over the APM.

[John]

I've owned a couple of the Aero ED 30mm's. They are better corrected than the Panaview 32 but not in the same league as a number of the other options being discussed here. I found they worked well enough in my refractors from F/7.5 and slower but not so good in the F/6.5 or F/5.3 dob.

My own ~30mm eyepiece is the Nagler 31 but those are fearsomely expensive these days. Mine was bought used over a decade back and no 2nd mortgage was needed back then 🙄

Edited April 29, 2023 by John

[Mr Spock]

Having looked through a 31mm Nagler attached to a 16" Dob I can say they are an incredible eyepiece. Oh but the mouth watering price... 

[Piero]

My journey: 30mm 82, 35mm Pan, 40mm maxvision (decloaked), 42mm vixen, apm 30mm uff. The pan was kept whilst comparing these eyepieces and sold after the arrival of the apm.

The stellalyra is a clone and sold to a bargain price. I haven't tried it, but hopefully it is a "true" clone, not like the Altair one with the non-black internal ring. That's a bit the issue with clones. You never know where the assembler has saved up to make it more competitive. At least aesthetically, the stellalyra looks identical to the apm one, which is a good sign.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Piero