Telescope Reviews: TMB 40 mm Paragon: First light!

As I promised last week, here is my first light and preliminary evaluation of the Paragon 40 mm eyepiece from TMB Optical.

As an added bonus, fellow CNer and CN sponser Scott Horstman Backyard Observatories , and his associate Jeff Kreider,were present to assist with the evaluation.

Before dark, we moved my TMB 203 f/7 into my newly completed ROR observatory. Scott an Jeff drove to town to clean up and eat some dinner, while I installed the diagonal, finder scope, etc. I used a variety of terrestrial targets to align the finder with the OTA. This exercise allowed me to get some feel for the field curvature/pincushion effect present in this e.p. The field curvature was virtually zero, and there was no discernable pincushion distortion present. I looked at fence posts, telephone poles, rocks on the hillside 4 miles away with no induced dizziness or nausea.

The first target of the evening (during the very bright phase of twilight) was Jupiter.

In my TMB 203 f/7 scope, the Paragon 40 mm yields 37x magnification.

The sky conditions were generally excellent, with zero cloudiness or haze. Seeing about 6 to 7 <1-10>.

Both on axis and off axis, the image of Jupiter was extermely crisp. All 4 visible satellites were point sources of light. No lateral color noted. Comfortable eye position, and absolutely NO kidney bean or blackout was noted by any of us. Even in the fairly bright twilight, we could see the N & S equatorial bands clearly.

Saturn: After we saw enough of Jupiter, we switched over to Saturn. At only 36x, the image scale was pretty small. The image, again , was extremely sharp and colorless. Several moons seen by various members of our little group. Titan was very obvious.

M13, the Great Hercules globular: The sky was now quite dark, and a SQM reading of 21.78. At 35x, the first impression was of a pinch of diamond dust on a black background; even at this low magnification, it was possible to see the "dust" as a cloud of pinpoint stars. All 3 of us agreed that the view was truly stunning.

Scott suggested that we have a look at M92, since we were already "in the neighborhood": A smaller and fainter version of M13. Still--hints of resolution, even at low magnification.

SQM reading now 21.92 at 22:30.

M10 and M12: In the TMB, these clusters are noticably different from one another even at only 36x. M12 appears significantly more diffuse than M10.

SQM reading now 22.00 at 22:55.

M104 "Sombrero" galaxy: Easily identifiable at 36x, but image scale too small to see details.

Evaluation (mine alone): This is really an outstanding eyepiece design.

Image sharpness (on axis) 10 <1-10>
Image sharpness (edge) 9 <1-10>
Lateral color 10 <1-10>
Viewing comfort (overall) 8.5<1-10>
Value 10 <1-10>

Considering that this eyepiece now retails for $249.00 plus shipping, I consider this to be the greatest bargain on the amateur astronomy marketplace at this time. It simply overwhelms my venerable Panoptic 35, my previous "most frequently used", in almost all areas. Thomas Back has really hit not just a home run with this one , but a true "grand slam"!

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Rodger

Meade SN-10 (UHTC) on Tak EM-200 mount/Antares rotating rings. Moonlite focuser.
Parallax 14.5" Newtonian on HD 200 mount (arriving soon!) w/ conical Royce mirror.
TMB 203 f/7 APO refractor on Tak NJP-160 mount.
Discovery 12.5" PDHQ
Schneider 18x80 "Flakfernrohr" binoculars/tripod mounted. Canon 15x50 IS binoculars
Unihedron Sky Quality Meter