Takahashi 7.5mm Ortho on ebay

[Dunkster]

There is too much of this sourcing from the same factory going on , if that is what is happening. It would be interesting to know how many places of manufacture their were in relation to how many brand names we have, we have a situation where one eyepiece can be dressed up to be least 4 different brands.

Is it really cloning if the original manufacturer chooses to sell them to different distributors/brands? More badge engineering? (struggling for a better term!)

[John]

One of the things we don't know is whether the various brand names that appear on these eyepieces have insisted on slight variations to the spec and / or quality control for their production runs. Quite subtle changes in the execution of a design, eg: degree of lens polish, application of coatings, internal light baffling etc, can lead to differences in performance in the field.

I guess it might be interesting to round up a number of examples of what looks like the same design and then test them back to back to see if they really perform identically too. On the other hand it might be a rather dull experience if they are the same !

On Celestron, as far as I know they have always used third party manufacturers for their eyepieces, even going back to the 1980's when I first got interested. Their eyepieces then were Vixen plossls, orthos and erfles, nicely made in Japan with the Celestron brand markings applied. Their refractors were Vixen made too including a Celestron badged version of the legendary 102mm Flourite.

[alan potts]

That sounds like a nice scope.

I am not going to suggest that eyepiece manufacturers do the same. When I worked I worked for a bathroom suite manufacturer, somewhat funny a Potts working for a Pottery, still, we made the same product stuck 4 different logos on that product and sold it at 4 different prices and gave them 4 different names, confused, I was.

I agree we have a different scenario here where different companies are having items made for them. What John suggested with the round up a group of these eyepieces may well be something to try and set up for SGL 9 next year, then it could become a group test in every sense of the word.

Alan

[great_bear]

As far as I'm aware, no-one has identified any demonstrable performance difference between the Takahashi, Celestron, Baader and Antares versions of these eyepieces.

People desperately want to believe that paying more means you're getting more, but unfortunately that's not how modern supply chains work. People like to imagine all kinds of things to explain away the price difference - "special coatings", "finely ground lenses", "better quality control", even the belief that their chosen brand must use "hand-picked eyepieces" from a mass production factory line.

However most of the differences in eyepiece cost are far less glamorous: Temporary variances in raw material costs at the time of the production run, differences in overall production efficiency, the cost of shipping both parts and product, various taxes, and last (but by no means least) the shocking multiplying effect of simple product markup formulas by the various intermediaries along the chain. Simply landing a product elsewhere for the purposes of putting it into a branded box - or for warehousing - adds significantly to the final retail cost.

Those who've worked for any major brand would not be the least bit surprised at the Takahashi markup.

Most premium brands make significant markups on accessories compared to factory direct prices - that's what "Brand Value" is all about.

[great_bear]

I'm actrually surprised that it's a celestron in drag. I wasn't aware they had anything to do with each other.

I'd not be surprised if all astronomy companies lie within six degrees of separation of one another. From the Chinese companies supplying just the rare-earth materials that go into even Japanese made lenses, to the Taiwan companies that supply chrome nosepieces to multiple eyepiece manufacturers, to the importers, wholesalers, and retailers through which everything passes, they're all related in one way or another.

There's a tendency for people to believe that the big brands do everything themselves, but in industry as a general rule it's only the bits where you're adding real value that you do in-house. Why make your own chrome barrels when there's a supplier who can do it more cheaply? Even if you create an eyepiece's optical design, you might opt to select the individual lens elements from a suppliers catalogue.

With regard to these eyepieces, even if the lens sets of this particular group of eyepieces ("The Masuyamas") are exactly the same, there's still scope for quality differentiation in terms of fit-and-finish and light control. It's entirely possible for example that one of these eyepiece variants could handle glare better than the others do although I've not read any such observations so far.