My Speers WALER thread

[Ags]

Speers WALER Series 2 4.9 mm with 1.6x extension tube fitted.

These are big eyepieces but not as heavy as they look, as the design involves a huge air space between the lenses in the nosepiece and the lenses at the eye end. They are out of production now but have always been highly regarded as so-called "Nagler killers".

I have had a Series 1 10 mm for over a decade, picked up cheap because the eyepiece had developed an incurable lens rattle - a common problem with Speers WALERS. But I have never noticed any effect on the deep sky views which are always superb, certainly at least as good as the Explore Scientific widefields I have owned. For planetary viewing the eyepiece is very effective but does fall a little short, with faint ghosting around bright objects.

I have now acquired two Series 2 units (4.9 and 13.4 mm) and will update the thread with first light hopefully tomorrow. I only checked that I could reach focus so far. Although they are supposedly long eye relief eyepieces (WALER = Wide Angle Long Eye Relief),  I can confirm eye relief on all of them is positively eyelash tickling!

Edited July 17, 2021 by Ags

[F15Rules]

Nice set!👍

Dave

[Ags]

One day I will find the 17mm!

[Don Pensack]

Version IV is available now.

[Ags]

Not very widely - and at nearly twice the price! Also, series 4 lacks the eccentricity of the earlier models 😀

[Mr Spock]

RVO have the series II in stock 

[Ags]

Don't tell me that! 😀 My astro budget is eaten up for months... I do try to get eyepieces second hand though, the only new eyepieces in my case are a couple of plossls.

[Louis D]

Long eye relief relative to a positive-only designs (Kellner, Plossl, Ortho, etc.) at short focal lengths, not long enough eye relief for eyeglass wearers, though.

[Ags]

Had first light with the 4.9 and 13.4 with my Zs66. Happy with both, the tight eye relief I saw during the day disappears at night. Very comfortable to use and easy to hold the view. Based on my experiences of a solar session earlier in the day, and from trying to split some tight doubles, the 1.6 extension ring does not maintain the quality of the view.

[LDW1]

My 2" 31.5mm, 90°, pin point edge to edge in my various refractors f6-f11.4, a great eyepiece for $150 C

[Ags]

That one is new to me,  looks like a great 2" eyepiece for a Mak or SCT (1.9 degrees in my C6...). If I am ever in the market for 2" eyepieces I will keep an eye out for one of these 😃

14 hours ago, LDW1 said:

My 2" 31.5mm, 90°, pin point edge to edge in my various refractors f6-f11.4, a great eyepiece for $150 C

 

[Ags]

Had a brief session viewing the top ⅔ of the Moon (the remainder was below the garden wall) and was using the 4.9 mm for 80x magnification at f5.9. The view was nice and sharp (and comfortable), but the eyepiece does have a lot of lateral color.

[Mr Spock]

That's a shame. I guess better correction comes with such a hefty price that it's still pretty good.

[Ags]

Issue only shows up in the outer quarter so it detracts from the whole-Moon view, but not from examining any particular part.

In general no major complaints with the eyepieces so far; comfy, give great views, and as cheap (second hand) as a good Plossl. Only the edge of the Moon in the outer field shows up the lateral color.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Ags

[Don Pensack]

On 23/07/2021 at 07:19, Ags said:

Had a brief session viewing the top ⅔ of the Moon (the remainder was below the garden wall) and was using the 4.9 mm for 80x magnification at f5.9. The view was nice and sharp (and comfortable), but the eyepiece does have a lot of lateral color.

With the Moon that low in the sky, I'm surprised you could differentiate chromatic aberration in the eyepiece from atmospheric refraction.

[Ags]

It varied with placement in the eyepiece.

[Louis D]

Try repeating the lateral color test with a highly elevated, bright star to gauge just how much there is.  My 13mm AstroTech AF70 has the most LC of any mainstream eyepiece I own.  It throws up a very pretty rainbow starting at 70% out from center.

[Ags]

I wanted to spend some time with the new eyepieces before subjecting them to a more nitpicking analysis so that I could form a general opinion of them before finding faults.

So far I love the SW13.4, but my general impression of the SW4.9 is that the image sometimes feels a bit soft.

Tonight I approached the eyepieces more forensically using a Zenithstar 66 to test them and using Deneb as a test star.

Starting with the ES 6.7 mm and Speers WALER 10 mm I have had for years: these are both on a par with SW10 slightly edging it. There is a slight degree of false color at the edge of the field as well as astigmatism (a star focuses to a radial line inside focus and a tangential line outside focus, and is a cross at focus). The ES6.7 has less astigmatism, but very strong false color at the edge.

The SW13.4 is very similar to the SW10, perhaps slightly better,  showing less lateral color. The main difference is the wider true field of the SW13.4 shows more of the field curvature of the Zenithstar 66.

The SW4.9 is another matter. Lateral color is much stronger (perhaps because of the greater magnification) but the edge is simply not sharp. While the other SWs focus stars at the edge to a sharp line/cross, the SW4.9 never gets sharper than a blur.

Of course, this only covers performance off-axis and you have to look for these defects to find them. The SW4.9 is a bit of an exception, as the full solar or lunar disk fills the eyepiece, so I do find myself looking off-axis more with the SW4.9 than the others.

On axis, all the eyepieces perform faultlessly, like any other modern eyepiece that hasn't been hit with a hammer.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Ags

[Kef9]

I've got the 5-8mm series 1 zoom and I love it. I have worried for years about the gap in the side though and bits and dust getting in but it hasn't seemed to ever be a problem