Show us your vintage eyepieces..

[Marvin Jenkins]

That’s interesting as I have been interested in photography since the film era. I still look at older lenses and think ‘I know it is old but it is not a multi lense zoom’.

I had a great 200mm Prinz prime lense on an old SLR and only wish I could get something for my modern Nikon. Slightly off the EP thread but that old school stuff seems very high quality.

Marv

[Roy Challen]

1 minute ago, DaveL59 said:

I guess there's also differing needs according to the scope used. A lot of the older scopes were "slow" but the short fast scopes these days put different demands on the eyepieces so there's a lot of options now out there.

For many of my older ones I've had them apart for cleaning the glass surfaces and where not already, blacked the lens edges which has made a slight improvement on the views. The teeny tiny lenses in some of those sure were a pain to work with tho!

Yeah, very true. I kept the Huygens because they work best at f/10+. The design of the telescope does indeed make a difference, and my 'fastest' scope is f/10😄. I would like a Telementor one day, although I'm not sure it would offer any more than what I already have, and an APQ...but this is an eyepiece thread!

[DaveL59]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

That’s interesting as I have been interested in photography since the film era. I still look at older lenses and think ‘I know it is old but it is not a multi lense zoom’.

I had a great 200mm Prinz prime lense on an old SLR and only wish I could get something for my modern Nikon. Slightly off the EP thread but that old school stuff seems very high quality.

Marv

The CZJ Sonnar 180mm f2.8 is pretty nice, tho huge and heavy being a medium format lens, there's a thread in the photography section for it. Works nicely on my Sony A77ii tho 🙂

[Marvin Jenkins]

To prove I am not off topic, what about those old eye pieces? 
M

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, Ags said:

When were Speer WALER eyepieces introduced? My only ocular that could possibly qualify for this thread is an SW 10.

It depends on the series and vintage within it.  If it has orange lettering, it is definitely pre-2000 like my V1 S-W 5-8mm zoom from 1999 (pictured with my 1998 vintage 5.2mm Pentax XL):

[Roy Challen]

8 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

To prove I am not off topic, what about those old eye pieces? 
M

Zeiss eyepieces, regardless of design, are pretty much as good as it gets, as long as you can accept a narrow fov, and ridiculously high prices that they now command. Televue never made a bad EP either, although their modern eyepieces seem to better somewhat than their earlier designs. Plossls made today aren't really any 'better' than than those made 30-40 years ago, IMO. You can search for rarer designs (pseudo- masuyama etc), and these are good, but not necessarily better than modern designs, but to many collectors, their appeal isn't always about the optical quality - they are good though 😉.

Plenty of nice vintage orthoscopic designs around, try Baader BGOs, almost any Japanese ortho of the 80s-90s is worth a try too.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Roy Challen

[Louis D]

41 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

We all assume that newer is better but in some areas of life this is not always so. Just a question, to get a grip on how much we have improved or not. I take it that TV Nagler are the best. (generally right now) 

Has this always been the case, or are there times when different EP’s were the choice with scopes of the day? I understand that sometime ago scopes for amateurs were not what they are now (no reference to quality) but the choice now is amazing.

Anti-reflection coating has advanced a lot, even in the last 20 years.  SAEP (kidney beaning) in UWAs is under much better control today as well.  That, and stray light control has improved in many premium eyepieces.  That 14mm Meade 4000 UWA has very well corrected field flatness and astigmatism across the field, but it does a terrible job of controlling stray light and kidneybeaning.  The 14mm Morpheus is better on both counts, and yet has a bit more field curvature and edge astigmatism.

The 14mm Pentax XL has excellent stray light control, no edge astigmatism, and no SAEP, but it does suffer from field curvature.  The Pentax XWs have slightly better coatings leading to slightly darker background sky.

The 5.2mm Pentax XL has very few flaws to this day.  Perhaps it could use those slightly improved XW coatings.

The Nagler T1s had loads of SAEP at longer focal lengths and tight eye relief at 4.8mm and 7mm.  I'm sure their coatings could also be improved upon.

The Vixen LV line view a bit dark for unknown reasons.  My 9mm from 1997 shown below gives excellent views otherwise (great stray light control, no SAEP, excellent coatings, flat field, and sharp to the edge).  They also exude quality when you pick one up and look it over.

 

[Louis D]

The entire Nagler T4 line was introduced in 1998.  I now have all 3 of them, just not in the same image:

The 12mm and 17mm both suffer from strong SAEP.  Otherwise, they're really good eyepieces.

That Bausch & Lomb 15x UWF 31-15-74 has to be pre-1980s at the latest because they got out of microscopes years ago.  The pair I have work excellently for binoviewing.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Louis D

[Louis D]

Televue introduced the 27mm Panoptic in 1994.  Since I bought my copy used in 1999, I know it has to be pre-2000 vintage.

It is still an excellent eyepiece.  It's just tight on eye relief for eyeglass wearers.

That 28mm RKE is also vintage.  I picked it up from Surplus Shed which had bought them as surplus lot.  It's a fun eyepiece to use due to the floating image effect.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Louis D

[Seelive]

I've been searching for my old Charles Frank 1-1/4" RAS threaded 1/2" Ramsden eyepiece that I bought to use with my first newt (4" f8) but I suspect it went in the bin years ago.

[Ibbo!]

17 minutes ago, Seelive said:

I've been searching for my old Charles Frank 1-1/4" RAS threaded 1/2" Ramsden eyepiece that I bought to use with my first newt (4" f8) but I suspect it went in the bin years ago.

I had one of those.

[Doc]

1 hour ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

That’s nice. I have very little experience and would love compare old kit to new just to see if we have really improved like the advertisements say.

Marv

Well I used to have a complete set of Televue Delos and a 31mm Nagler and I actually prefer the Clave's. They do have a few shortcomings such as fov and eye relief but then they are sharper on axis and show more colour. Most of my viewing is in the centre as I'm always nudging my scope.

[F15Rules]

Wow!

Some great old EPs coming out of the closet😊👍.

Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming!

Dave

[Ags]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

If it has orange lettering, it is definitely pre-2000

Thanks - I  have a vintage EP after all!

Edited December 24, 2020 by Ags

[John]

23 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Wow!

Some great old EPs coming out of the closet😊👍.

Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming!

Dave

No more here I'm afraid Dave

I've owned loads of them in the past though and enjoyed most of them. If we can post pics of eyepieces that we used to own then I might be able to help, eg:

Some of the bottom row of this one are pre-2000 I think:

I've owned sets of the old smooth sided TV plossls, TV Widefields and a number of Celestron Ultima's / Orion Ultrascopics. Older erfles and orthos too plus a couple of the Series 1 Speers-WALER's but I just don't have any photos of those, unfortunately.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by John

[F15Rules]

Hi John,

All welcome!👍👍

Someone mentioned Speers Waler eyepieces..some are definitely pre-2000 I think..I owned a 5-8mm variable "zoom" Speers -Waler earlier this year, you may remember it?

It had a massive 80+ degree field, unusually for a zoom type eyepiece, but the whole eyepiece was, er, massive! It was/is a really nice eyepiece optically, but just too big for me to practically want to use it much..(see below), so I let it go. Very unusual and interesting eyepiece though..

Dave

Edited December 24, 2020 by F15Rules

[F15Rules]

52 minutes ago, John said:

No more here I'm afraid Dave

I've owned loads of them in the past though and enjoyed most of them. If we can post pics of eyepieces that we used to own then I might be able to help, eg:

Some of the bottom row of this one are pre-2000 I think:

I've owned sets of the old smooth sided TV plossls, TV Widefields and a number of Celestron Ultima's / Orion Ultrascopics. Older erfles and orthos too plus a couple of the Series 1 Speers-WALER's but I just don't have any photos of those, unfortunately.

 

 

Lovely to see the volcano top.orthos too John...I always preferred the Volcano Top's ergonomically to the Baader Genuine Ortho flat tops, but felt the BGOs just had the edge on content and scatter control? Great eyepieces though, and still sell very readily today 👍

Dave

[Mr Spock]

My Circle T Orthos. I have a 12.5mm on the way - it's in the post somewhere.

[Louis D]

22 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Someone mentioned Speers Waler eyepieces..some are definitely pre-2000 I think..I owned a 5-8mm variable "zoom" Speers -Waler earlier this year, you may remember it?

Dave

 

That's the fancier click-stop version that came with the nice focal length window.  It was introduced sometime after 2000, but most certainly with the original optical prescription inside.

[John]

This was my first ever wide field eyepiece. A Speers-WALER 24.7mm. It sported a 68 degree apparent field and worked well in my TAL 100 and later my Celestron C5 both of which were F/10. As I moved to faster scopes though astrigmatism became rather obvious in the outer parts of the field and I was less happy with it. I later learned that they 24.7mm (that it it's true focal length apparently) was the least well regarded of the Series 1 Speers-WALER range.

Another interesting early foray into wide field eyepieces was the Fullescopes Super Wide "plossl" which was really an erfle derivative. 80 degree plus AFoV's but, again, very nice at F/10 but the field edges went downhill fast as the scopes got faster. I also has the 20mm in this range quite recently but my current scopes were a bit on the fast side for it.

Over the past few years, re-visiting eyepieces that I used to own has not proved too successful to be honest

I had a set of these as well at one time which were a development of the same 80 degree design:

These are the Japanese Widescan III's. An expensive eyepiece back in the late 1990's but with similar issues to those mentioned above. I had high hopes for the 30mm / 84 degree 2 incher in my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 but the outer 25% of the FoV was really awful. The view looked a bit like water twirling down a plug hole !

Perhaps this lot are my greatest "misses" rather than hits ?

My fault I guess for a) developing a liking for wide fields and also b) for moving gradually away from F/10 and slower scopes I suppose

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by John

[F15Rules]

54 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

My Circle T Orthos. I have a 12.5mm on the way - it's in the post somewhere.

Yep, I recognise that 25mm!!😊

[Merlin66]

Back in the 60’s I used a 6” f8 and the only eyepiece I had was a solid brass 1/2 “ Ramsden.

I’d love to find one to relive those days.

[Pixies]

Although I'm quite new to this. I have some older EPs.

I goit the Circle-T's after they were recommended on here to someone else. I liked the idea of an older 'basic' EP that outperformed modern expensive ones in certain circumstances. Certainly during the recent Mars conjunction, the 7mm UO provided the best view, although there was a lot of nudging involved. I love their 'contrasty' views. 

I got the 4mm for star tests.

The Circle-V Erfle I picked up locally secondhand, purely out of curiosity. I'll probably sell it soon, as my dob is too fast for it, at F/6.

 

 

[Nakedgun]

Saw this thread when current but only got around to photographing my set today.

I entered this hobby after the suggested 1990 cut-off for "vintage" ep, so everything I have in the .965" format has been acquired, really, during this millennium.  I gathered them to use with any refractor I happened across requiring them and do have a Tasco (Japan) 60mm f/11.7, though I'd much like a Carton or similar find such as F15Rules' recent gain.

The 17mm Ploessl from Taiwan, and not sure about the Meade items' origins, otherwise all Japan sourced.

 

 

 

Hadn't thought about these for a spell and am now reminded I must begin searching for a better-quality refractor model soon.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Nakedgun

[John]

39 minutes ago, Nakedgun said:

Saw this thread when current but only got around to photographing my set today.

I entered this hobby after the suggested 1990 cut-off for "vintage" ep, so everything I have in the .965" format has been acquired, really, during this millennium.  I gathered them to use with any refractor I happened across requiring them and do have a Tasco (Japan) 60mm f/11.7, though I'd much like a Carton or similar find such as F15Rules' recent gain.

The 17mm Ploessl from Taiwan, and not sure about the Meade items' origins, otherwise all Japan sourced.

 

 

 

Hadn't thought about these for a spell and am now reminded I must begin searching for a better-quality refractor model soon.

 

 

Those Celestron "Halloween" plossls are very hard to get in the .965 inch fitting. All of those are made in Taiwan I think.

The "diamond Z" 6mm ortho is made by Tanzutsu in Japan I think.

The Kellner 25mm might be of Vixen manufacture, again in Japan. I used to have one branded Vixen and it looked just the same. Similarly the Celestron branded barlow lens.

Hard to find these decent quality .965 inch items these days.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by John