Mersing March 2006: The Fellowship of the Pentax (:P)
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Canopus Lim
- Posts: 1144
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Actually only 4 are mine, rest of the rest are rlow's.antares2063 wrote:Yup, most of the eyepieces belong to Elton. I only own the XL 21mm and XO 5mm. The three 0.965inch eyepieces in the front row are owned by Remus.
Best regards,
Junwei
SIngastro SEALs
Last edited by elton on Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Since we are on the topic of pentax eyepieces, the 2 which impressed me most that night were Junwei's 5mm XO and the 40XW.
The 5XO yielded 250x on jupiter, not an aggressive magnification which guarantees crisp views on most nights. It was very sharp and was able to tease out all the shades of colour on Jupiter -- yellow, orange, red and brown. Frankly I never observed Jupiter much in the past and this was the best I've seen. Lots of bands and lots of detail in the bands. Eye relief was short but surprisingly usable. The quality of the image was maintained right up to the edge even in the F5 optics, a quality I liked in the previous XPs. Junwei, can borrow again to compare it with the Tak 5LE and AP 5 SPL please? Anyone wants to volunteer a 5mm TMB mono to throw into the fray?
The 40XW shows an obvious improvement over the 40XL in fast scopes. In an F10 SCT or other slow scopes, the 40XL, MK-70s and other decent long focal length widefields give very decent images which may not justify the XW. However, in a fast scope like and F5, the 40XL shows much worse off-axis performance, poorer overall contrast and less pinpoint stars, making it a seldom-used ep in the teleport. The 40XW addresses these problems and gives images of quality similar to the other focal length XWs -- clean, sharp and contrasty. There was a little field curvature at the edge (mixed with unavoidable coma in this F5 system) but much less than the 40XL. To most people, the 40XW will appear sharp to the edge even in fast scopes if you don't scrutinize the edge. I held off buying a premium hand grenade like the 31 Nagler T5, 41 Pan or 40XW for a long time because I was not convinced the improvement in viewing experience was worth it, but viewing the the triple Puppis clusters in the same field changed my mind. Can't wait to try this on M31.
Oh btw, Remus' 2 pentax scopes should have been in the picture too!
The 5XO yielded 250x on jupiter, not an aggressive magnification which guarantees crisp views on most nights. It was very sharp and was able to tease out all the shades of colour on Jupiter -- yellow, orange, red and brown. Frankly I never observed Jupiter much in the past and this was the best I've seen. Lots of bands and lots of detail in the bands. Eye relief was short but surprisingly usable. The quality of the image was maintained right up to the edge even in the F5 optics, a quality I liked in the previous XPs. Junwei, can borrow again to compare it with the Tak 5LE and AP 5 SPL please? Anyone wants to volunteer a 5mm TMB mono to throw into the fray?
The 40XW shows an obvious improvement over the 40XL in fast scopes. In an F10 SCT or other slow scopes, the 40XL, MK-70s and other decent long focal length widefields give very decent images which may not justify the XW. However, in a fast scope like and F5, the 40XL shows much worse off-axis performance, poorer overall contrast and less pinpoint stars, making it a seldom-used ep in the teleport. The 40XW addresses these problems and gives images of quality similar to the other focal length XWs -- clean, sharp and contrasty. There was a little field curvature at the edge (mixed with unavoidable coma in this F5 system) but much less than the 40XL. To most people, the 40XW will appear sharp to the edge even in fast scopes if you don't scrutinize the edge. I held off buying a premium hand grenade like the 31 Nagler T5, 41 Pan or 40XW for a long time because I was not convinced the improvement in viewing experience was worth it, but viewing the the triple Puppis clusters in the same field changed my mind. Can't wait to try this on M31.
Oh btw, Remus' 2 pentax scopes should have been in the picture too!
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antares2063
- Posts: 687
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yes, but only the 40xl, 20xw (with adapter) & 5xl are mine, though I would rather have Elton's set: Pentax 40xw, 30xw (not shown), 20xw, 10xw, 7xw (not shown), 5xw!!!!!! He just need to acquire the 14xw & 3.5xw to complete a fabulous XW collection!Actually only 4 are mine, rest of the rest are rlow's.
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Canopus Lim
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