Antares Speers Waler II 5-8mm Zoom

[AndyH]

I also had the 10mm and 7.5mm Speers.

The 7.5 was very good, but the 10mm was simply superb. Sadly I sold both to fund other astro items. I would love to get the 10mm back. Or perhaps an 8.5-12mm zoom

[Stargazer_00]

does anywhere still sell this 8-5mm zoom?

[Mr Bond]

Not new as far as I lnow.

I chased a used one down in the US and had it posted over.

Well worth the nervous wait tho.

It's very big and no lightweight. I feel that is its only drawback. Happily that makes no difference to me.

As I suggestion, if they were still making it, I would have preferred a 2" fitting.

Very high quality optics. Maybe a touch more ER might also have helped.

Nitpicking really.

Hunt one down Sir!

[AndyH]

As Mr Bond says, they've been discontinued for some time sadly. If you see one for a good price 2nd hand, grab it.

I know of 3 shops who list the 8.5-12mm zoom. One in the UK and two in the US. Of those, one in the US has it at a staggeringly low price of $190. If I had money, I think I'd get one.

[Stargazer_00]

I spotted that and wondered if it was worth getting. Ihave a broad range of 82 degree eyepieces anyway

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

What is the eye relief on the 8.5-12mm?

[AndyH]

Cut n paste from the web -

Focal Length: 8-12mm Zoom

Apparent Field of View: 89-84 deg

Eye Relief: 12mm

Clear Aperture: 1.2" (31mm)

Weight: 1.0lb 6.4oz (635g)

Overall Length: 6.0"-8.0" (152mm-203mm)

Maximum Diameter: 2.4" (61mm)

Barrel Diameter: 1.25" (31.8mm)

Materials: Brushed aluminum/ black anodized aluminum body, rubber grip & fold down eyeshield, chrome barrel

Lens Coatings: All internal and external surfaces Multi-Coated, blackened edges

Number of Elements in Lens: 8

Other features: Click stops for range of focal lengths. Accepts 1.25" filters

Made in Canada

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Ouch, 12mm is rather small, especially since the LER in WALER stands for Long Eye Relief. An ER of 12mm is of little use to those with glasses.

[AndyH]

12mm ER is the relatively normal trade off in 82 degree eyepieces, I'd say.

The LER aspect has long been a sniggering point of the Speers. Never ever been the case, apart from a couple of fixed length eyepieces that traded off the the 82 deg to 72, thus giving better ER. I think if memory serves they were a 10mm + 14mm, in the MKI garb.

Andy.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

12mm ER is the relatively normal trade off in 82 degree eyepieces, I'd say.

The LER aspect has long been a sniggering point of the Speers. Never ever been the case, apart from a couple of fixed length eyepieces that traded off the the 82 deg to 72, thus giving better ER. I think if memory serves they were a 10mm + 14mm, in the MKI garb.

Andy.

The T4 Naglers have eye relief of 17mm and upwards. That is sufficient for me (hence my love of them). Getting something like that out of a wide-angle zoom is another matter (Leica is doing interesting things in that respect).

[AndyH]

Ahh. A bit of presumtion on my part. I had looked at the T6's, which have 12mm.

[Mr Bond]

Andy, did you ever work out if the Vixen draw tube extension was the same thread as the EP extension for this EP?

forgive me if it wasn't yourself that was looking into it.

Phil.

[AndyH]

Hi Phil.

Ramiro was going to check.

The thread O/D is correct(M43), just need to find out the thread spacing. ie: hoping it's 1.0 mm and not 0.75mm.

[AndyH]

If anyone has a friend with Vixen stuff, perhaps an email with him/her may provide the answer?

[AndyH]

After a bit of hunting around for odd thread sizes, for another astro item, I happened upon this,

http://tiny.cc/1ah12w

Whilst not 100% proof(I've not spoken to or emailed anyone regarding it) that the Vixen ext tube uses M43x1.0 threads, it sure sounds like it?

Andy.

ps: still to do a star timing test on the 5-8 zoom, with & without the adapter/ext tube I have. I'll report back when I have.

pps: I think Takahashi also use an M43 thread, but with the tighter 0.75 thread pitch. But then again, what adapters & threads do Tak not use! They are adapter daft.

On the vixenoptics.co.uk site, the ext tube is #72957

[Space Beagle]

Ha Ha, this thread has prompted me to post for the first time in a while!

I sold the Speers Waler 5-8mm a while ago now, but it certainly was a fine eyepiece to use, if a little on the large size!

I probably should've held on to it, but had to downsize my ep collection at the time, ho hum!

I am still on the forum nearly every day, I just havn't posted in a while!

Regards to all

Doc

[acey]

does anywhere still sell this 8-5mm zoom?

Discontinued but I got one new a few months ago from an Italian dealer (Tecnosky.it) after much searching online. They don't seem to have it any more so I guess I got the last one - maybe some other dealer still has one, but you'd have to look very hard. Even second-hand ones are thin on the ground - people tend to hold on to them.

Very nice zoom with all the pros that have been mentioned. Cons for me are that it's not so much click-stop as clunk-stop, and pushing and pulling to adjust magnification is not as nice as twisting (as in Baader zoom) - if you want to go straight from 8 to 5 on the Speers Waller you need to get your head back and out of the way then give it a tug. The weight of the thing means there's a small but noticeable sag when the upper part is fully pulled out from the lower - it doesn't seem to affect the view but in theory you'd expect that it would. But I'm very glad I got it, worth every penny.