Ric L Ecker wrote:
> I don't know why people are singing the praise of the Konig eyepiece
> because it is an old design. If the design was so great then why are the
> bigger manufacturers not coping this design. The Konig was King Kong for
> a time but has been surpassed by better designs in the wide field
> arena.

My understanding is that many of the "new" designs are often just
reworkings of older eyepiece designs. The Konig uses 4 or 5 elements
to give pretty darn wide fields of view. Most of the TeleVue eyepieces
use 6 or 7 elements (at least the Radian and Nagler designs I grabbed
specs for). That helps make the Konigs cheaper to produce.

You simply can't discount price when choosing an eyepiece. I just
bought a UO 25mm Konig for the observatory. How'd I make my choice?
Well, I was looking for something in the low 20s to fill a magnification
gap in our collection. I wanted a 2" eyepiece, and I had to work within
a budget. Of course I started looking at TeleVue eyepieces. There's
no doubt that they're great. The 22mm Nagler is $445, the 22mm Panoptic
$280. (These ep's have an 82 and 65 degree apparent field, respectively.)

In contrast, the 25mm Konig has a 70 degree apparent field, 4 elements
(less glass is better, I believe) and is $180.

Not everyone is fond of the new designs, either, I run into the
kidney-bean problem with our 12mm Naglers often enough to note it.
Jay Reynolds Freeman, who's probably forgotten more about optics than
I'll ever know, has the following opinion:

"By judicious use of a hack saw, any Nagler can be converted into a
satisfactory Barlow lens and two pretty good Kellners. Or, if you have
two of them, thirty seconds with a lead hammer and a pipe nipple will
make a serviceable small barbell."

I've spent enough time looking through our 40 and 32mm Konigs to know
that they've got superb views. In terms of design, old != bad to me.
Why are you so quick to write the Konig design off just because it's
been around a while?
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - Technical Director - Frosty Drew Observatory
12 Emma G Lane, Narragansett, RI 02882 - 401.782.9042

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