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E-Mail Karen! |
Astronomy Gear I thought it might be a good idea to kick around my experiences with certain equipment. It's just this sort of thing that I found most valuable on other sites that talked about telescopes and related equipment (Weasner's Might ETX Site comes readily to mind... I believe my "review" of the Orion Solar Filter is there as well as some input on Palm software and my input on USB cables). I have been using a Vixen Lanthanum Zoom eyepiece. It "zooms" from 24mm to 8mm. At first glace it shares similarities to other Eyepieces of this nature. Unlike the Meade or Tele-View Zoom it has increments marked at 24,16,12 and 8mm. (I don't find this to be much of a problem). Some of the features touted in the Orion ad for this piece are: its long eye relief (ranging from 17mm at the 8mm Focal Length to 19mm at the 24mm focal length), quality seven element design (including one lens made from the rare-earth glass Lanthanum, thus the name) and Apparent FOV ranging from 40 to 60 degrees. Orion currently is selling this piece for $209 (plus s/h). (This is about $10 cheaper than what I usually see the competition selling for). The Lanthanum is used to reduce aberrations to a minimum (since I'm neither a Geologist or Physicist I assume it does). So far I've only gotten it out twice, but I like it. Experts will tell you that a Zoom isn't as good as all the individual eyepieces it would replace (and I'm sure they're right) but do you really have the money and the storage for all those eyepieces? I don't! I also don't think I'm going to notice the small amount of clarity I might be sacrificing since my viewing conditions are seldom perfect anyway.
Only went out once so far with it, but Autostar 2.0i seems to behave pretty well. The Meade 908N & 908B filters worked pretty well too. Also I'd like to recommend trying out the Star Pilot Suite to any of you Palm Pilot users out there. Pocket Stars and Sun-Moon for you Pocket PC users. |
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