21/24 Hyperion or 20XW?

Hi there. I've been halfway out of the hobby for a couple of years and some of the technology looks to have passed me by. I've searched the archive for these eyepieces but come up a little short on info that applies to my particular situation. Hope you all can give me some tips.

Am looking for a new eyepiece to replace my 24.5mm Meade SWA. It gave good service on slower scopes (f7 and slower) but I find the edge performance unsatisfactory on an f5 dob. I'd like to have longer eye relief too, as my astigmatism (in my eyeball, not my primary mirror!) gets ugly at exit pupils of 4-5mm and I prefer to use my eyeglasses for wide field viewing. I tried a friend's 24mm Panoptic and it was much better at the edge of field but not quite enough eye relief.

So, if I want 65+ degree field and ~20mm eye relief in a 20-24mm, 1.25" ep, I think my choices are Hyperion or Pentax XW. I guess there's the Stratus too, but those look similar to the Hyperion and the Baader coatings are supposed to be a little better. The 24mm Hyperion gets so-so reviews on fast scopes, but I can't find much on the 21mm, which is apparently a different design. With the integrated "barlow" might the 21mm Hyperion be a better performer at f5 than the 24mm? Is the 20mm XW going to be much better than the 21mm Hyperion at f5, enough of a difference to be noticeable through the coma in an f5 newt?

Is there something else out there I should be looking at? A 22mm T4 Nagler would fill all my needs and then some, I'm sure, but the price is prohibitive especially since I'd have to upgrade my filters to 2" to get full use out of it.

Thanks!!

Matt

The 20mm XW would be better than the Hyperion, the 22mm T-4 or the 20mm T-5 Nagler might be considered better than the XW.

Hi, Matt. Welcome back. The 20XW has a bit of field curvature like the 21XL. I don't remember if I tried it in a Paracorr or not, but I wouldn't have it straight up in my old 10" f/5 dob. Haven't heard any good things about the 21 Hyperion/Stratus, all bad. The 24 Hyperion is a new thing, and I haven't tried one. The 22LVW is very good, and they can sometimes be had for less than $150 here. That was the last eyepiece I had that met your description. I sold it (and almost everything else) to get a 13mm Ethos.
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Mike

Mark,

At F5 I don't think the 24mm Hyperion is really a choice. The one I have is a good eyepiece in my slower refractors, but not in a fast Newt. At F4.5 I found it to be simply unusable.

good luck,
dan