First Light review - Nagler 11 t6 + 2x Barlows:

[Nick P]

This is a first light review of my new eyepiece and barlow which arrived yesterday morning thanks to the nice people at Telescope House having taken advantage of their bank holiday discount offer last Friday.

I am in the process of updating my EP ‘s having used my plossls to establish which magnifications and fields of view suited my needs, so initially I wanted an eyepiece that would give magnifications around the 75x mark and 150x when barlowed in my 900mm focal length Newton, with wide views for DSO viewing.

The nagler 12 would have given exactly the right magnification but also would have involved the purchase of a new focuser to fit the 2 inch barrel (another £200+) so opted for the nagler11 t6 which gives me 82x and 164x magnification plus 1d and 0.5d AFOV. This EP covers my plossls from 15 – 6.4mm although there is a gap at 125x which is being filled by an 8mm plossl and will probably be the next for update!

There were three targets I was particularly keen to view being M13, the Double Double, and M57. As luck would have it the skies were pretty clear so set up the scope, collimated, and left it outside to cool for an hour or so.

First up was a star test on Arcturus, which showed that seeing was not that good, the out of focus view was ‘boiling’ so didn’t hold out much hope of seeing anything outstanding!

Wrong!

Once I got M13 into the view of the nagler I was struck by the increased contrast, which slightly dimmed the image but gave a better impression of the form of the cluster and its tentacles (although at 82x only a few stars could be resolved), all of this with an 82d field, beautiful!

Then I put the Barlow in and increased magnification to 164x and the view was stunning especially within the ‘space walk’ field of view – individual stars and strings were resolved – I would love to view this from a dark site in this lens, it would be outstanding.

Next up was the double double, and having to wait until 12.30am before it becomes visible, my eyes were quite tired. Having put the main double in the eyepiece I could not detect any split at 82x, then with the Barlow and 164x….. BINGO a dirty split of the double double in poor seeing! The split was infinitesimally small and kept coming in and out of view, but definitely discernible. Suddenly the tiredness ebbed away and another first notched up for the week!

Moving across to the west and down picked up M57 , which showed as a smoke ring with a dark centre, again although the view was slightly dimmer than a 15mm plossl, it seemed to have more detail. Stepping up to the barlow the view was of a gorgeous smoke ring within the huge FOV which showed that its shape is not circular but more like a shallow tunnel seen almost straight on, I’ve never seen anything like this before, fascinating.

Overall the evenings viewing with the new EP was a great success, the nagler 11 t6 increases contrast and slightly dims the view, but this combination increases the viewable detail, focus did seem a little soft on bright objects however this may have been a function of the seeing conditions.

The Barlow performed brilliantly showing no loss of view quality – being able to watch M13 and M57 drift across the 82d FOV at 164x as sharp at the edges as in the middle of the field is quite something to experience.

Best

A very happy Nick!

[John]

Nice review of a nice eyepiece - the 11mm is the one Type 6 Nager that I've not owned !.

I've tried the 9mm and 7mm T6's against some pretty stiff competition, eg: Baader Genuine Ortho's and a Pentax XW 10mm and the XW was the only EP that had a very slight edge which was in light throughput - and it was very slight indeed.

I'd be a little suprised if you find the 11mm to be soft under decent viewing conditions - mine are tack sharp.

Which barlow did you get ?.

[Nick P]

Hi John, I think you are right and the slight softness was due to the seeing rather than the eyepiece - all the reviews I have seen say that they are sharp throughout the field of view.

I matched this with the TeleVue barlow - I can't resist the nice green writing!

[John]

... I can't resist the nice green writing!

Oh I know that feeling

[Chris H]

Nice report, the 82d FOV is a revelation compared to 50d plossls.

P.s don't look through an Ethos