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Volcano Top eyepieces [all designs]


SoupDragon

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There are kellners, orthos, rank kellners and erfles in that VT design and a few other less common designs such as triplane.

Some are from the circle T manufacturer (Towa ?) and some circle V (Vixen) and probably another Japanese manufacturer or two as well. The design (shape) was popular about 20-30 years back and housed a few optical configurations.

The orthos went from 4mm to 25mm I think. A few 2 inch ones were made in longer focal lengths as well.

These designs were available under a number of different brandings over the years. Apparently if you ordered enough you could have your own branding engraved on them !

 

 

 

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Well I own and use volcano top circle T ( Towa ) Orthoscopic and Kellner eyepieces. You can see in my signature what eyepieces I own. Very good eyepieces especially for planetary, as long as you don't mind the relatively short eye relief. They can be had relatively cheaply secondhand.

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1 hour ago, Dave1 said:

Well I own and use volcano top circle T ( Towa ) Orthoscopic and Kellner eyepieces. You can see in my signature what eyepieces I own. Very good eyepieces especially for planetary, as long as you don't mind the relatively short eye relief. They can be had relatively cheaply secondhand.

I own and use these as well, what great eyepieces- great for faint galaxies too- my 9mm is exceptional is is my 5mm, better than the 5mm KK Fuji ortho in the case.

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4 hours ago, John said:

Some are from the circle T manufacturer (Towa ?) and some circle V (Vixen) and probably another Japanese manufacturer or two as well. The design (shape) was popular about 20-30 years back and housed a few optical configurations.

Generally, the one man assembling operation Tani is credited with being the source of circle-T eyepieces.  The housings and lenses came from a variety of sources.  Tani-san was similar to Vernonscope's Don Yeier.

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19 hours ago, John said:

There are kellners, orthos, rank kellners and erfles in that VT design and a few other less common designs such as triplane.

Some are from the circle T manufacturer (Towa ?) and some circle V (Vixen) and probably another Japanese manufacturer or two as well. The design (shape) was popular about 20-30 years back and housed a few optical configurations.

The orthos went from 4mm to 25mm I think. A few 2 inch ones were made in longer focal lengths as well.

These designs were available under a number of different brandings over the years. Apparently if you ordered enough you could have your own branding engraved on them !

 

 

 

Yes, you had to buy 50 minimum of each focal length.

 

Glen.

 

 

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On 10/03/2020 at 20:28, Louis D said:

Generally, the one man assembling operation Tani is credited with being the source of circle-T eyepieces.  The housings and lenses came from a variety of sources.  Tani-san was similar to Vernonscope's Don Yeier.

While I have no poor Circle T's different lens sources could partly explain why some are absolutely great eyepieces-very high transmission and razor sharp. These eyepieces are such good value to buy, obviously used. I managed to pick a few up unused,NIB. My 4mm UO/Circle T hangs right in there, only bested by the likes of the Vixen HR's.

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Another big fan of the Circle T  VT orthos. Mine are the University Optics branded ones in pairs, 18mm,12.5mm,9mm, and 7mm plus a few spare singletons. Quite superb when the chance to use them comes along.

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I much preferred the volcano top design to the newer Fujiyama design. I did have a little input on the design of the Fujiyama. At least I got rid of the undercuts😀

 

Glen.

 

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6 minutes ago, GlenM said:

I found the optics on the Fujiyama had a little less scatter, but certainly not as comfy to use.

 

Glen.

 

I found that when I compared the Baader Genuine orthos, Fujiyama orthos (which you kindly loaned me :icon_salut:) and Astro Hutech orthos with Circle-T's.

The performance differences were subtle but I suspected that the more recent designs had higher light transmission and they did show less light scatter around really bright targets.

I found myself wishing for the Baader GO / Fujiyama optics in a volcano top body design but, alas, that never happened.

The Circle-T's still represent great value when you can get them for well under £50 on the used market.

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Totally agree, John. Yes, it was a subtle difference to be sure. Not sure if many people would have noticed it. I did try and push the Fujiyama eyepieces to be made in a volcano top design but I didn't quite manage it sadly. I personally think it was a mistake.

 

Glen.

 

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The Brandon's are certainly good eyepieces. Sadly, I sold mine because I couldn't justify owning Fujiyama Ortho's as well as the Brandon line. The single Mag/fluorite coatings on the Brandon's were/are exceptional.

 

Glen.

 

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1 hour ago, GlenM said:

The Brandon's are certainly good eyepieces. Sadly, I sold mine because I couldn't justify owning Fujiyama Ortho's as well as the Brandon line. The single Mag/fluorite coatings on the Brandon's were/are exceptional.

 

Glen.

 

I'm going through that same process. Except I will be comparing Brandon's, Orthoscopic, and RKE eyepieces. Got an 8mm RKE to compare to the 8mm Brandon, I will see which one does better on Jupiter!

Dave

Edited by Dave1
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8 hours ago, John said:

Brandons seem to be "marmite" eyepieces from the varied reports I've read on them. Do they work better with some scope types than others ?

To answer that question, Brandon's are designed to work in telescopes of F7 or slower. I have zero problems with Brandon in an F15+ telescopes. Sharp right to the edge at F15. My Brandon 8mm has given me the very best views of the moon I have ever seen, etched onto the eyepiece, the colour rendition was very good indeed,  with my Skylight 102mm F15. Besting a 7mm Fujiyama Ortho, and my Circle T 9mm. I don't like to do eyepiece comparisons of eyepieces with a different focal length.

That's one of the reasons why I bought the Edmund Optics RKE 8mm, slightly less glass than the Brandon, so should be brighter but might not control scatter so well, and might be more susceptible to ghosting. One of the other reasons is because I read Daniel Mounsey review from 2004 on Cloudy Nights. Daniel Mounsey did a Planetary Eyepiece review. He compared Brandon, TeleVue Plossls, University Optics Orthos, Pentax .965 Orthos, Celestron Ultima's, TeleVue Radians, Edmund RKE, TeleVue 3-6mm Zoom, Zeiss Abbe Ortho, Takahashi LE, TeleVue Panoptic. Link  https://www.cloudynights.com/documents/planetaryeyepieces.pdf

He also did a follow up review a year or two later, where he had different experiences that caused him to change his findings. In his second review he updates on his first and included new eyepiece, the new eyepieces are TMB Mono, Brandon, Clave, TeleVue Radian, Pentax XO, Edmund RKE, TeleVue 3-6 zoom, Pentax XW, Nagler T6, Orion / Parks Ultrascopic, Takahashi LE, University Optics HD ( Fujiyama HD Ortho ), University Optics Ortho. Link https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/69249-planetary-eyepiece-comparison/#entry896145.

I hope the linking is ok, if its not then im sorry. But they are two very good reviews, which might surprise some people.

Dave

Edited by Dave1
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27 minutes ago, John said:

Thanks. A lot of what you posted was invisible because the text shifted to black on dark grey. I've edited the post to change that text to white on black.

 

 

Thanks John, its great that you edited it, but I have my board settings set black on white, so now I can't see what I typed. 🤣 

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23 minutes ago, Dave1 said:

Thanks John, its great that you edited it, but I have my board settings set black on white, so now I can't see what I typed. 🤣 

It's good stuff, I can assure you :smiley:

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6 hours ago, Dave1 said:

I hope the linking is ok, if its not then im sorry. But they are two very good reviews, which might surprise some people.

I link to stuff on CN all the time and haven't had my hand slapped by a moderator yet.  I always try to give attribution, so there's no confusion about what is being linked.

To make it easier to click through on links, pick some words in your posting to make into an active link, highlight them, click on the diagonal chain symbol fifth from the left in the composer window tool bar which will bring up a pop-up window.  Paste your link into the URL field and click the "Insert into post" button.

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On 12/03/2020 at 14:41, GlenM said:

I much preferred the volcano top design to the newer Fujiyama design. I did have a little input on the design of the Fujiyama. At least I got rid of the undercuts😀

 

Glen.

 

Same here, at one point i had the full set of Circle T VT`s, most bought from Glen, but a lot were just not getting used, decided to sell some, but then did not want to split the family up so sold the full set, interesting i at one point had a circle T 20mm kellner and that was sharp as a scapel 

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Yes, John, Marmite springs to mind. When I was testing the 102 F/11's before sending them out I always used the Brandon's. It was easy for me to have the time to test stuff with being a bedroom retailer😇

I love Marmite by the way😀

 

Glen.

 

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15 hours ago, nightfisher said:

Same here, at one point i had the full set of Circle T VT`s, most bought from Glen, but a lot were just not getting used, decided to sell some, but then did not want to split the family up so sold the full set, interesting i at one point had a circle T 20mm kellner and that was sharp as a scapel 

Hi Jules,

 

I hope all is well with you. Still raining in Queensbury?😀

 

Glen.

 

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