31 Nagler or 41 Panoptic?

Hello everyone,

My question is weather to buy a 31mm nagler or a 41mm panoptic. I've been using an f/6 8" newt. and have a 15" f/5 truss tube on the way. when I ordered the new scope I bought a 17mm Nagler and have been using it with my 8" scope and I have to say that this eyepiece has blown my mind and that all my other ep's are now useless.
I'm more of a deepsky fan than a planetary observer and really enjoy the view of low power eyepieces. I normally use a 35mm deepview from orion and having used the new nagler I now know what pincusion and field edge distortion is, its kind of funny because the 17mm Nagler shows almost as much field as the 35mm deepview, so needless to say I need a new long F.L. eyepiece.
Price is not an issue for me its the efficiency of the eyepiece that I'm worried about. the new scope is an f/5 and I've read that at this F.L. eyepieces over 30mm are not any advantage. what I'm after is a wide low power view, will the 41 give a wider field than the 31?.
the math says yes, but if the exit pupil is too wide for my eye to take in would I be better off with the 31mm, or even a 35mm panoptic?


Please lend me some experience.

Hi Jason
Welcome to the expensive world of Naglers! Off hand I would say yes it should, however I would suggest going to the Televue web site and use their Eyepiece Calculator. Plug in your scope specs and it will calculate much useful information for all TV eyepieces and print it out. The big issue I see would be the exit pupil size, getting in those longer FL the exit pupil gets huge and could be a problem.
Hope this helps
Buck

I have used a 41mm Pan and the 31mm Nagler on a f/4.9 15" Dob. We tested them on all kinds of objects and the Nagler is just a little better corrected and sharper on the edge. The view is superior in the Nagler overall. The FOV is about the same really. The 31mm Nagler has sufficient eye relief as does the Panoptic.

Hello:
In your case, I'd probably go with the Nagler. As you mentioned, the exit pupil with the 41mm is too big, and even with the 31mm it's getting close. I've used the 31mm "grenade" on several scopes, and it's been great every time. It's not as useful as a finder eyepiece as I thought. The apparent field of view is so big that it's easy to miss a faint fuzzy hiding in the corner! But I still say get it anyway, it's quite an eyepeice, and a good self defence weapon too.
But, don't throw away your plossls, especially if you have good ones. I was into faint fuzzies, then I got a scope with really sharp optics and now I'm looking at the planets more, and *gasp* even the Moon! A good plossl will beat a Nagler when it comes to planetary detail any day of the week. I've compared a Meade 15mm plossls vs. the 17mm type 4 Nagler, and the Meade plossl was the clear winner.

Cheers
Mike Connelley

The true field of the 41mm is 10% wider than the 31mm Naglers and its total field area is 20% larger. However, the 31mm Nagler has a 21% wider apparent field.

On your scope you'd get a 2.16 degree true field at 29.8x with the 41mm Pan (and a 6.83mm) exit pupil. And with the 31mm Nagler it would be a 1.97 degree true field at 39.4x with a 5.16mm exit pupil.

You have to decide which of those features are most important to you and choose accordingly. Given the similarity in overall field size I'd choose the 31mm Nagler because of its smaller 5.16mm exit pupil. That reduces the chances that you'll have any aperture wastage and it will darken the sky background and improve the contrast.