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Excellent report, David.

Aside from noticing a warm tone on the Moon, did you notice any loss of detail when observing globs, other DSOs, and the Moon, as compared to the 13mm Ethos?

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No, the eyepiece was a great performer on both planetary views and Deep-sky. In fact, because the field of view is so wide, the minor aberrations the eyepiece showed during testing generally are not much of a factor in the overall view. Under dark skies, I tended not to notice them nearly as much as when I was bench-testing the unit and deliberately looking for even the slightest problems. The aberrations were confined to the very outermost regions near the field stop, and to be frank, they didn't really detract from the overall view very much. As I said in the review, it isn't quite an Ethos, but it is a very worthy competitor. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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Great overview David, it looks like a viable option. I don't recall you dwelling on the performance in the 8" f/6 Newtonian. Did you feel the ES may be any more or less suited to different optical systems?

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It worked pretty well in the 8 inch f/5 Newtonian, although because of the coma issue in the scope (fairly visible in a 1.38 degree true field of view), much of the time, we used it with the Tele Vue Paracorr in place, extending things to f/5.75 (1.2 degree true field). The view in my 100mm f/6 refractor was what really caught my eye, as it sort of had the same effect of "pulling you into the eyepiece" that I first saw with the 17mm Ethos, although perhaps not quite as strong as with the Ethos. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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David:

Very nice report. I really liked the criteria you chose to evaluate and the grading system (A, B, etc.) you chose to employ. It made for a very user-friendly review.

One thing that might help with context would be for you to provide your report card for other similar focal length superwides, ultrawides and megawides.

I would love to see Knisley "report card" for the 14mm Pentax XW, 13mm Nagler Type 6, 14mm Meade Series 4000 UWA, 13mm Ethos, 14mm Meade Series 5000 UWA, 16mm WO UWAN, etc. This would be a beutiful review format to serialize and then do a magnum opus "wrap up" report comparing all of the individually rated eyepieces.

Thanks for the excellent work,

Jim

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Thank you very much. I first used the letter grading on my review of the 8.5-12mm Speers Waler as an experiment, and it appears that it was successful. I don't have some of the eyepieces you mention, but I do have the "original" 1990's vintage Meade 14mm Ultrawide (flat-top and not volcano top) which is no longer made. At the time I received it, it would probably have graded-out as follows:

Construction: A

Field of View: A

Astigmatism correction: B+

Lateral Color correction: B+

Distortion Correction: B

Curvature of Field Correction: A+

Eye Relief: B+

Cost/Benefit Ratio: A

Overall Optical Performance: B+

My next eyepiece review will probably be the Hyperion 36mm Aspheric, so stay tuned! Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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