Excelsis Ratings/Reviews - Votes:TeleVue Panoptic 41mm

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TeleVue Panoptic 41mm

[Note: Vote moved from description by scopedreamer2032]

An eyepiece for those who love the 35mm Panoptic but want a little more field of view. And it delivers exactly that.

When used in my f/10 11" SCT it delivered the same high contrast, sharp to the edge performance as the venerable 35mm Panoptic but with an additional .15 degree of true field of view. That's not a whole lot more, especially for the price, but if you must have the widest field possible, the 41mm Pan delivers.

One nice surprise was the eyerelief. Despite being advertised as having 27mm of eyerelief as compared to the 24mm of the 35 Pan, I found I could place the eyecup against my face to block stray light without any "blackouts", something I couldn't do with the 35 Pan. The position of the eyecup, which is attached to the tapered top section of the eyepiece, can be raised by "unscrewing" the tapered section as needed. There is a locking ring underneath this tapered section which can be positioned to lock the eyecup in the desired location. I found that the eyecup worked just fine in the lowest position, but maybe it was a bit better when I raised it a few millimeters.

Optically, the 41 was very good with the possible exception of a very slightly brighter sky background, as compared to the 35 Pan. This is most likely due to the lower magnification (68x for the 41, vs. 85x for the 35). Stars were as sharp at the edge as the 35 Pan, and there was very little, if any, "pincushion" effect when I panned across the starfields.

This eyepiece excelled on groupings of objects, like M81/82, the Trio in Leo, Virgo galaxies, etc., showing the wispy outer edges of these objects as well as the 35mm Pan ever did, with the esthetically more pleasing view of a slightly wider "frame" of sky around them.

My opinion, of course, and YMMV...

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 12 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date: 06/08/2003 06:41:15 am PST
By: goaheaded
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=246463

Reply Replies: 0

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