Telescope Reviews: Re: Eyepiece v. Eyepiece/Barlow and PN cs's

Last night I went out to look into this. I had to work today and seeing as it really didn't get dark until midnight I was only using my f/8 6" dob. Tonight I'll do a little more with my f/5 12.5". the eyepiece setups I was comparing were;

5mm T6 Nagler (240X) vs 12 mm Speers WALER/2.5X Powermate (250X) the SW is a very sharp eyepiece and the same AFOV as the Nagler.

and

6mm Radian (200X) vs 15mm Televue Ploessl/2,5X Powermate (200X)

Due to limited aperture I only looked at two PN with the central star in mind, NGC 6826 (Cyg)Blinking and NGC 6543 (Dra)Cat's Eye.

With the Blinking (6826), as always it was a beacon with all eyepieces and combos. To be honest I couldn't see much difference in ease of detecting detail about the PN. If I really had to commit to which was best I'd say the Radian first followed closely by the 5mm T6, but really that's a coin toss. With the Radian the star appeared the brightest.

Then I looked at NGC 6543. With this PN, the single eyepiece clearly won over the combo. With the 5m T6 in moments of good seeing the central star could be detected. With the 12mm/2.5X Powermate combo there were tyimes I could tell there was a point central brightening but it was not seen as a star. The Radian vs the TV Ploessl/PM combo were a closer tie. They both showed a very strong small central brightening but nothing that I would call a star.

I then had a gander at a few other bright PNs NGC 6572, NGC 6210, and NGC 7027. On the whole I think the single eyepiece gave a slightly better veiw but it was really marginal.

It will be interesting to see how things look tonight with the faster optics. I think the results will be similar though.

Now I have one question. Do you want me to do the test with Paracorr in place or not? I guess both ways would be the best test.

Personally I think eyepiece quality was what your friends were noticing.

Bill

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6'' Orion SkyQuest
12.5'' f/5 Custom Truss Dob
William Optics 80mm ZenithStar II ED Doublet
f/5 25" newtonian on a giant GEM, any time I want

Observing sessions grand total for 2007, 171.
So far in 2008, 115

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