Older eyepieces, who made them?

[alan potts]

Just a general question of no importance at all. I was watching a Sky at night last night from some time in the 90's, it was rather good and about urban astronomy. SPM showed one or two of his many scopes in close-up.

Now I believe Televue started with the Plossl eyepieces in the very early 80's and I know Pentax was about then. Lets turn the clock back a little, who made the eyepieces of the day in the 50's and 60's. I ask because I never see anything in one of Sir Patricks scopes that I have ever seen before, or since.

Alan

[Pig]

Alan

I found this website a little while ago whilst browsing, The timespan shown covers quite a long period and you can select each decade separately

http://www.philharrington.net/old50.htm

I am sure you will find something in there

[John]

I can remember back to the early 80's when I was 1st seriously interested in equipment and the choice then was limited to Japanese made kellners, erfles and orthoscopics. Plossls were the "new kid on the block" back then and, as well as the Tele Vue ones, Vixen did their "silver top" series which had (still have) a good following and then Meade came out with the original Japanses 5 element "super plossls" while Celestron launched the Ultima range, again Japanese made.

No chinese or russian stuff available back then. 

I don't know what was around in the 50's and 60's but much of it would have been home produced in the RAS thread fitting I would have thought. The early Japanese scopes arrived en masse in the late 1950's / early 1960's I think and they had push fit .965" eyepieces which were either simple huygens, ramsden or kellner designs with orthos for the posh folks !

[swamp thing]

Alan I found this website a little while ago whilst browsing, The timespan shown covers quite a long period and you can select each decade separately  http://www.philharrington.net/old50.htm I am sure you will find something in there

Nice one Shaun. I still have an old copy of "Astronomy" somewhere with this add inside.

http://www.philharrington.net/meade82.jpg

[Pig]

Nice one Shaun. I still have an old copy of "Astronomy" somewhere with this add inside.

http://www.philharrington.net/meade82.jpg

The are quite a few advertisements within the content on the link and as John mentioned in this thread Keliner have been around quite some time

[ronin]

love the advert that says:

Tinsley

Cutting edge astrophotography in the age of Bill Haley and the Comets.

[Pig]

love the advert that says:

Yes there are some crackers, one even boasts about it being covered in crocodile  I think it means crocodile skin as it shows a picture. How times have changed

[ronin]

Crocodile skin covered telescope.

Wonder who thought that one up?

Early makers looks like Brandon and Edmund Optics, would presume the Japanese market was also active although small, and also Zeiss, but expensive.

[RikM]

Would many of the early consumer telescope eyepieces have come from Microscope EP manufacturers?

[alan potts]

Shaun,

Very interesting indeed.

A little off topic but I am sure you will all have heard SPM 5 inch refractor refered to as a Cook refractor, I am not 100% sure but I believe this is a Hull company. I don't believe thay make telescopes any longer but they did in 1972 when I first started, it was and still is called Cook instruments.

I started with a Dixons 3 inch with 2 Huygens and an ortho, I could get X600 with the barlow and the 4mm. The scope came with a 25mm a 6mm and 4mm and had a F/L of 1200mm, a really well thought out package one useful eyepiece, well almost two.

I think Fullerscopes had their own makes as well, for those that don't know they are now called Telescope House.

Alan

[RikM]

I think Fullerscopes had their own makes as well, for those that don't know they are now called Telescope House.

Alan

I had quite a nice Fullerscopes 40mm Kelner. It now makes a fine finder for my Son's 127Mak and is good for afocal lunar, which he enjoys.

[moffer]

I had quite a nice Fullerscopes 40mm Kelner. It now makes a fine finder for my Son's 127Mak and is good for afocal lunar, which he enjoys.

That brings back some fond memories...  I had a Fullerscopes 40mm Kelner back in the 70s.   

[Pig]

Shaun,

Very interesting indeed.

A little off topic but I am sure you will all have heard SPM 5 inch refractor refered to as a Cook refractor, I am not 100% sure but I believe this is a Hull company. I don't believe thay make telescopes any longer but they did in 1972 when I first started, it was and still is called Cook instruments.

I started with a Dixons 3 inch with 2 Huygens and an ortho, I could get X600 with the barlow and the 4mm. The scope came with a 25mm a 6mm and 4mm and had a F/L of 1200mm, a really well thought out package one useful eyepiece, well almost two.

I think Fullerscopes had their own makes as well, for those that don't know they are now called Telescope House.

Alan

One thing is for sure its been a big part of peoples live's for a long time

[kev]

Hmm, I had a Fullerscopes 25mm Kelner, a 12.5 and 6 Fullerscopes Orthos back then, all on a fullers 8" f/6 on a MK3 mount, driven by a 240V motor.

Had a lovely figure that mirror, wish I had never sold it.

[John]

I've currently got a Fullerscopes Mk III equatorial mount that I'm "doing up"  

It's crude compared to todays mounts but it's really solidly put together and over engineered in the same way that the TAL equipment is.

It does need some TLC though as it's been in an old shed for 25 years or so without being used.

[ronin]

Hate to say it but I would like one of the J.W. [removed word] scopes.

Q: Hey mister what scope you got?

A: It's a [removed word].

OK it's late, bit bored and the program on Titan is showing pictures of the surface of Mars.

[swamp thing]

I've currently got a Fullerscopes Mk III equatorial mount that I'm "doing up"    It's crude compared to todays mounts but it's really solidly put together and over engineered in the same way that the TAL equipment is. It does need some TLC though as it's been in an old shed for 25 years or so without being used.

Love to see some pics john. I do hope you'll post a thread on this as you progress I still have a fullerscopes catalogue somewhere with all their range of scopes and mountings in. It also has some pretty impressive pics of their 24" fork mounted leviathan. What a weapon that looked.

[John]

Love to see some pics john. I do hope you'll post a thread on this as you progress I still have a fullerscopes catalogue somewhere with all their range of scopes and mountings in. It also has some pretty impressive pics of their 24" fork mounted leviathan. What a weapon that looked.

When things start to look presentable I'll certainly post some pics Steve. I have the 1985 BC&F catalogue which has pics of that 24" in it and the 18" at the Charterhouse observatory on the Mendip Hills not far from me. I've recently discovered that an old mate of mine was involved in restoring that scope a few years back.

The eyepieces listed are Ramsdens, Kelners, Symmetricals, Erfles and an early type of zoom lens. The eyepiece focal lengths are given in imperial with metric in brackets. Those were the days " ... hello, I'd like a 3/8ths of an inch Orthoscopic and a 1 1/2 inch Kelner please .... "    

[Qualia]

It's mere speculation but in light of the OP, I wonder if the World Wars also had an important role to play in the manufacturing and development of eyepieces not only in the times of conflict but for years afterwards.

The way I imagine it is that WWII would have seen an increase in production of many types of focussing instruments: gun sighting finders, tank sighters, binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, periscopes, wide field artillary instruments and so on. And typically in times of modern conflict, just as WWI, Erfle eyepieces, cheaper Kellners and for more precision work, the Orthoscopic would have all gone in to mass production.

Following WWII, it seems no coincidence, then, to find that these are the very eyepieces which would have dominated the astronomy market for decades to follow. Not only would their manufacturers already have the labour skill and necessary machinary to build such stuff in place, not only would they have huge quantities of surplus eyepieces already in stock, but by virtue of these very facts,  would have been able to undercut any serious competition from new and upstarting companies for decades to follow.

As the developing but rationed 50s passed into the prospering 60s and 70s, more of that military eyepiece surplus, that skilled labour and necessary machinary and so on would have dried up, been put in to retirement, start to run down, etc. Moreover, with a prospering 'middle-class' looking for something new which didn't harken back to the 3 standard eyepiece design of their belicose forefathers, we suddenly, and again by no coincidence, see the move by new and up coming companies market a relatively old and obscure design of eyepiece branded as a new high quality, wider field, more exoctic and better class of eyepiece, namely, the Plossl.

Of course, all this is just speculation, but it may not be a million miles from some truth

[YKSE]

Of course, all this is just speculation, 

 I don't think that I'd like to agree with you on that, according to Chris Lord, there were quite some surplus EPs after WWII, page 42-44 in

http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/BOOKS/EVOLUTIONofEYEPIECES.pdf

[Qualia]

 I don't think that I'd like to agree with you on that, according to Chris Lord, there were quite some surplus EPs after WWII, page 42-44 in

Thanks for the link, Yong  In light of that link and what was being argued above (which seems to suggest the same), viz. the sheer surplus of WWII eyepieces, manpower, skill, machinary etc what makes you feel that you wouldn't like to agree?

[YKSE]

nja, I don't agree on that "All this is just speculation", I would say what you stated were facts.

[alan potts]

John,

Look foward to seeing some pictures of the mount. I think this was the mount that I always wanted when I was about 18 years old, I had an old Fullerdcopes catalogue up until only a few years back. As you say everything was over engineered, not such a bad thing, I always dreamed of this mount and their 11.25 inch SC, there must be some of them still about.

I guess this was long before the days of FLO and the like.

Many thanks to the others for some interesting replies

Alan

[AndyH]

Didn't Clave of Paris, make a range of symmetricals(Plossl's), way back? 60's, 70's?? Older?

Andy.

[Pig]

It's mere speculation but in light of the OP, I wonder if the World Wars also had an important role to play in the manufacturing and development of eyepieces not only in the times of conflict but for years afterwards.

The way I imagine it is that WWII would have seen an increase in production of many types of focussing instruments: gun sighting finders, tank sighters, binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, periscopes, wide field artillary instruments and so on. And typically in times of modern conflict, just as WWI, Erfle eyepieces, cheaper Kellners and for more precision work, the Orthoscopic would have all gone in to mass production.

Following WWII, it seems no coincidence, then, to find that these are the very eyepieces which would have dominated the astronomy market for decades to follow. Not only would their manufacturers already have the labour skill and necessary machinary to build such stuff in place, not only would they have huge quantities of surplus eyepieces already in stock, but by virtue of these very facts,  would have been able to undercut any serious competition from new and upstarting companies for decades to follow.

As the developing but rationed 50s passed into the prospering 60s and 70s, more of that military eyepiece surplus, that skilled labour and necessary machinary and so on would have dried up, been put in to retirement, start to run down, etc. Moreover, with a prospering 'middle-class' looking for something new which didn't harken back to the 3 standard eyepiece design of their belicose forefathers, we suddenly, and again by no coincidence, see the move by new and up coming companies market a relatively old and obscure design of eyepiece branded as a new high quality, wider field, more exoctic and better class of eyepiece, namely, the Plossl.

Of course, all this is just speculation, but it may not be a million miles from some truth

Its always amazes how human beings up the anti and innovation increase during times of war