Do you have a vintage jewel?

[mikeDnight]

 Is there a vintage jewel in your collection that stands out as something special?  With so many modern eyepiece designs available to us today, it can sometimes be that older vintage eyepiece's get overlooked as if they'd outlived their usefulness. In this case, let's define Vintage to mean any eyepiece that is nolonger in production. So what is your secret treasure, especially those that stand out from the crowd.

Although I have a number of real eyepiece gem's, I'll start us off with just one. This is one that was very kindly donated to me by paulastro. It's an old volcano top Erfle, and boy is this little eyepiece good. It's the sort of eyepiece that causes gasp's of awe and wonder when seasoned observers take their first look in the dark, without actually knowing what it is they are looking through. 

[JeremyS]

Great topic for a grim day with sleet falling, Mike 👍🏻
 

My vintage jewel is the Pentax XP-3.8. I first bought one in about 2000 for use with my Tak FS102. I was living in the Far East at the time and this EP, which I hadn’t come across before, had legendary status among my friends over there. A stunner on the planets. I made the error of selling it after a few years as I wasn’t doing much observing, mainly imaging. I had the opportunity to purchase a replacement for Japan last year.

I like its diminutive nature, 0.965-inch (especially contrasted with its brash and burly sibling). It’s for lovers of short eye relief. 😊

Edited February 19, 2022 by JeremyS

[F15Rules]

6 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great topic for a grim day with sleet falling, Mike 👍🏻
 

My vintage jewel is the Pentax XP-3.8. I first bought one in about 2000 for use with my Tak FS102. I was living in the Far East at the time and this EP, which I hadn’t come across before, had legendary status among my friends over there. A stunner on the planets. I made the error of selling it after a few years as I wasn’t doing much observing, mainly imaging. I had the opportunity to purchase a replacement for Japan last year.

I like its diminutive nature, 0.965-inch (especially contrasted with its brash and burly sibling). It’s for lovers of short eye relief. 😊

Not much room for a handle on that little beauty Jeremy...🤔😋

Dave

[JeremyS]

Might I have a second bite at the cherry? Another treasured EP is my Pentax XL 28. This is rarer that the other XLs (which are still excellent performers by the way). Max field for a 1.25-inch EP.

Next to it is my bete noir. A classic Cooke EP with an RAS thread (that goodness they ditched those in favour of push fit; pity that some EP manufacturers came along and messed that game up by introducing undercuts). Terrible to use (in my 3.5-inch Cooke refractor) as field narrow. I’m not sure of it’s type (presume Huygenian) or FL.

Mike, according to your definition of vintage, we could include our complete sets of Vixen HRs.How lucky are we to have those! 😊

[Peter Drew]

I too have a 32mm Erfle as well as a 28mm RKE, a 16mm Clave' Plossl and three 44mm "Palomar" giant Erfles      🙂

[Saganite]

I will have to offer these Mike. 

The Meade 5 element 26mm  pair have been with me longer than any eyepieces  that I own, the UOVT's included. They have a simple, sharp, and  crystal clarity which more than compensates for their  modest AFOV.  I almost sold these a few years back to your good friend Paul, before I came to my senses !

The 24mm Ultima is a vintage beauty and a dazzling performer, another  of which I would pay a 'King's ransom ' for, to be able to binoview with ...

Edited February 19, 2022 by Saganite

[HollyHound]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Mike, according to your definition of vintage, we could include our complete sets of Vixen HRs.How lucky are we to have those!

Do half sets count... I'm lucky to have managed to get both the 1.6 and 2.0 Vixen HR in recent months.... awesome in the FC-100DZ 😁

Edited February 19, 2022 by HollyHound

[Deadlake]

I have a full house

The 3.4 mm HR is the most used....

[paulastro]

Well, I suppose I should mention the 35mm Eudiascopic (Ultima etc) before anyone else mentions it - kindly passed to me by Mike - and more special as I  l know how much Mike valued it. (Mike still has the Ultima version).

I also have recently obtained a second 28mm RKE.  I must confess at this time Peter, I bought it to go with the one I already had on loan from you to use in my binoviewer.  I'm rather hoping now I've reminded you that I can keep it fior the forseeable future 👍 🙏 😊.

[paulastro]

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

I will have to offer these Mike. 

The Meade 5 element 26mm  pair have been with me longer than any eyepieces  that I own, the UOVT's included. They have a simple, sharp, and  crystal clarity which more than compensates for their  modest AFOV.  I almost sold these a few years back to your good friend Paul, before I came to my senses !

The 24mm Ultima is a vintage beauty and a dazzling performer, another  of which I would pay a King's ransom for, to be able to binoview with .

Saganite, you do realise that following your post, some unscrupulous people will be looking to buy a 24mm Ultima to sell to you for a 'kings ransome' 🤭.

Edited February 19, 2022 by paulastro

[F15Rules]

32 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Saganite, you do realise that following your post, some unscrupulous people will be looking to buy a 24mm Ultima to sell to you for a 'kings ransome' 🤭.

I have one you can have Steve, shall we say £1000??😋😈😁

Dave

[Saganite]

40 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

I have one you can have Steve, shall we say £1000??😋😈😁

Dave

SOLD !!

Edited February 19, 2022 by Saganite

[Roy Challen]

I don't have any vintage eyepieces at the moment, other than this lovely Meade RGO. The second one I've had, not had the chance to have a decent look through it yet, but the first one was a cracker, as was the 10.5mm I had too.

I truly regret selling my CZJs, best EPs I've ever owned.

 

[F15Rules]

13 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

I don't have any vintage eyepieces at the moment, other than this lovely Meade RGO. The second one I've had, not had the chance to have a decent look through it yet, but the first one was a cracker, as was the 10.5mm I had too.

I truly regret selling my CZJs, best EPs I've ever owned.

 

A cracking eyepiece!!👍

Dave

[Highburymark]

Some great eyepieces in this thread. And lots of reasons to seek them out as many outperform modern equivalents. I only have the 30mm in the Celestron Ultima range (bought from Steve I think?), but as Mike points out they are superb in a binoviewer. 
The Zeiss OPMIs are lovely microscope eyepieces from the 1980s designed for surgical applications. Leica HC Plan S are another ex-microscope pair adapted for astronomy - they have quickly become my favourite binoviewing eyepieces. Trick is to get a pair made in Germany, as current HC Plans are inferior and made in Singapore. I bought mine from the States - site selling ex-microscope gear.

[RT65CB-SWL]

My c.1916 sighting telescope...

and an unknown manufacturer/type brass RAS threaded eyepiece as shown in the centre of the image below. 

Beacon Hill Telescopes made the eyepiece projection unit/adaptor and the 1.25" adaptor for the eyepiece.

 

More up to date and these two ‘vintage’ jewels...
             
left: TeleVue Nagler 13mm/Type 1 - right: Meade Ultra Wide Angle 8.8mm/series 4000.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Philip R

[Saganite]

39 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Some great eyepieces in this thread. And lots of reasons to seek them out as many outperform modern equivalents. I only have the 30mm in the Celestron Ultima range (bought from Steve I think?), but as Mike points out they are superb in a binoviewer. 
The Zeiss OPMIs are lovely microscope eyepieces from the 1980s designed for surgical applications. Leica HC Plan S are another ex-microscope pair adapted for astronomy - they have quickly become my favourite binoviewing eyepieces. Trick is to get a pair made in Germany, as current HC Plans are inferior and made in Singapore. I bought mine from the States - site selling ex-microscope gear.

You did indeed Mark. A stunning pair in a binoviewer.

I didn't really want to part with them but I decided to keep the 26mm pair shown in this thread.

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

You did indeed Mark. A stunning pair in a binoviewer.

I didn't really want to part with them but I decided to keep the 26mm pair shown in this thread.

I was using them the other night Steve and thinking how well they perform. Presume with expensive glass and ‘made in Japan’ they became unprofitable to manufacture. A year or so ago I found a couple of stores/websites still selling new examples in Europe, but they were expensive - £200-ish. 

[mikeDnight]

9 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

I too have a 32mm Erfle as well as a 28mm RKE, a 16mm Clave' Plossl and three 44mm "Palomar" giant Erfles      🙂

Best to keep your eye on that 32mm Erfle Peter. You know how untrustworthy these binoviewer users can be! 

Edited February 19, 2022 by mikeDnight

[Mr Spock]

My little jewels, sigh...

[mikeDnight]

7 hours ago, Saganite said:

I will have to offer these Mike. 

The Meade 5 element 26mm  pair have been with me longer than any eyepieces  that I own, the UOVT's included. They have a simple, sharp, and  crystal clarity which more than compensates for their  modest AFOV.  I almost sold these a few years back to your good friend Paul, before I came to my senses !

The 24mm Ultima is a vintage beauty and a dazzling performer, another  of which I would pay a 'King's ransom ' for, to be able to binoview with ...

 Unfortunately I only have a pair of 25mm Parks Gold, so nothing you'd be interested in Steve. 

In fact come to think of it, I have a box full of those exquisite pseudo Masuyama's, (mostly in pairs). 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by mikeDnight

[mikeDnight]

4 hours ago, Highburymark said:

Some great eyepieces in this thread. And lots of reasons to seek them out as many outperform modern equivalents. I only have the 30mm in the Celestron Ultima range (bought from Steve I think?), but as Mike points out they are superb in a binoviewer. 
The Zeiss OPMIs are lovely microscope eyepieces from the 1980s designed for surgical applications. Leica HC Plan S are another ex-microscope pair adapted for astronomy - they have quickly become my favourite binoviewing eyepieces. Trick is to get a pair made in Germany, as current HC Plans are inferior and made in Singapore. I bought mine from the States - site selling ex-microscope gear.

It may or may not be of interest, but the pseudo Masuyama's such as the Ultima's, are taken from the Zeiss Astroplanar. It has been suggested on CN that Takahashi somehow influenced the Japanese manufacturers of the pseudo Masuyama's, after the death of Mr Masuyama, to stem the flow to Celestron, Orion, and Park's. How true that is I really couldn't say, but it's interesting that Takahashi's LE series appears to be based on the same design, though I personally feel the Ultima's, Ultrascopic's and Park's Gold etc have the edge over the Tak's by a considerable margin, particularly in the longer focal lengths. I'd truly love to get my hands on an authentic Zeiss Astroplanar.

Edited February 19, 2022 by mikeDnight

[Pixies]

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

My little jewels, sigh...

I'm always keeping my  eyes open for that 5mm you're missing!

 

[Stu]

I think I can claim eight little jewels in here somewhere. Six Baader Genuine Orthos, a Vixen 3.4mm HR Planetary and a 2 to 4 Nagler Zoom.

[Deadlake]

40 minutes ago, Stu said:

I think I can claim eight little jewels in here somewhere. Six Baader Genuine Orthos, a Vixen 3.4mm HR Planetary and a 2 to 4 Nagler Zoom.

What’s the TOE 2.5 mm like?