Help Choosing Widefield EPs

[david o]

Hi all,

Having seen the Pleiades for the fist time the other night - Wow it was like looking into a jewel-box!

Well I've caught a mild dose of eyepiece fever. I'm hankering after something that will give me a really wide tFOV with my f/7.5 C80ED-R - the 2" diagonal is on the way.

After rummaging around on the web it seems that the choice within my price range boils down to the following:

Revelation 42/50mm (re-badged GSO?), tFOV = 4.55/4.58º

Skywatcher Aero ED SWA 40mm, tFOV = 4.53º

Moonfish Superview 50mm (the 42mm is sold out), tFOV = 4.5º

Rigel Widefield 38mm, tFOV = 4.43º

William Optics SWAN 40mm, tFOV = 4.8º.

Comments, thoughts or opinions about any of these EPs welcomed. Especially to do with performance/image quality or their "fit & finish".

Anyone know the weights of these beasties? The only one I could find was 570gr for the WO SWAN.

Thank you.

PS Found this useful page on my travels round the web:

Ken's Telescope Calculator .

[blinky]

David,

I have a 2" EP for sale - its a 30mm one and has not much less FoV than the 50mm one you mention above due to it being a 70degree wide angle EP. I have read a couple of bad review's of the moonfish but the revelation and Rigel seem to be pretty good.

Here is the link to the EP i am selling

http://stargazerslounge.com/sale/86952-meade-qx-30mm-2-eyepiece.html

I can also post some graphs of the FoV in here to let you see what you would be seeing with these EP's but it will need to be later as I am at work at the moment!

[John]

I tried a Skywatcher Aero ED 30mm recently and was pretty impressed with it - well made and reasonably light for a 2" as well. It worked very well in the 8" f/6 newtonain and 4" F/6.5 refractor that I tried it in

Of course if you really want to go wide then the Nirvana 28mm is superb

John