USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 24 October 2003

Subject:	user observations/eyepieces
Sent:	Thursday, October 23, 2003 15:09:48
From:	EddieDTS@aol.com
my personal opinions on the meade eyepiece set, 40, 32, 26, 20, 15, 12,
9.7 and 6.4mm, with my etx90,

I was out tonight on what i would call a good seeing night, i went
through all of my eyepieces on various sky objects,

lovely sharp bright views on 40 and 32mm pieces which the 32 i prefer
because of the eye relief as with the 40 although no big problem you
have to look from about 1/4 of an inch back . double cluster was very
impressive in them and i like to look at objects like ring nebula or
albireo in these 2 although they appear very small , as with the field
of stars also in view it makes it look very nice.

The 26 and the 20 are also nice peices showing m81 and m82 in same fov
looks very nice sight, the sharpness of stars in all the 4 pieces are
quite good. these 2 are good for looking at the sun also with the proper
solar filter.

I have looked through the 12, 9.7 and 6.4 at bright stars like vega and
doubles like castor and the double double, not impressed, the stars
appear like what you would see if you sharpened a picture too much or as
if you blew up a picture where the pixels began to show so seperating
castor cant be done properly because the oversharpness merges into the
other star. As you can see i dont have the technical words for this as
im certainly no expert these are just what i see so if you have these
eye pieces and get clear pinpoint stars with no excess pls email me so i
know if my high powers are faulty, i just put it down to the fact that
they are chinese made and not japanese eyepieces,  now the very strange
thing is this, i was veiwing mars and saturn at differant nights, when i
used these 12, 9.7 and 6.4mm pieces there was no problem, in fact as i
saw it in the 6.4mm i saw the cassini division and not only titan but
rhea with saturn, a little on the fuzzy side but minimal and certainly
was impressive to me, and the 9.7 looked sharper and very nice too also
seeing rhea clearly.

on mars even now with the 12mm i could just see a polar cap and
certainly some darkness of the land, with the 9.7 it was also there but
with the 6.4 it looked very nice (this was a good night to view mars) i
clearly saw the polar cap on south and the dark features altho a little
faint and it was a nice little ball, personally i thought it was great
as mars is now much smaller, as i did with saturn, so there you have 2
very differant accounts of the high power eyepieces, bad for stars and
pretty nice with planets. And on the suns new hotspot i checked it out,
very good with 26 and 20mm yet closing in on the sunspot with the 9.7
and 6.4, couldnt really get a good focus.

i have spoken to mike about the high powers and he gave me some helpful
tips that i tried but it was still the same.  so overall i would say
these eyepieces are pretty good but i will be buying a orion ultrascopic
to really compare, i am satisfied with these eyepieces, love the 32mm
and 20mm and even the 6.4 for planets but forget the doubles with it. I
cant comment on the barlow as i dropped it in the mud

i would love to hear anyones opinions on the same eyepieces wether good
or bad just to compare.

 eddie

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