Do you have a vintage jewel?

[Mr Spock]

LVWs are looking much happier now a 5mm has been added 

The orthos are happy too now they have their own case. Yes, that's a vintage Meade 32mm 4000 Plössl in there too.

[Froeng]

My 40mm Axiom. The perfect low power eyepiece for SCTs…

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

LVWs are looking much happier now a 5mm has been added 

Now you need to swap out the 5mm SLV for a rare 7mm LV since you've got two 5mm eyepieces in there.

[F15Rules]

On 17/05/2022 at 21:06, mikeDnight said:

I wish I'd never sold it

I wonder how many of us will have that epitaph inscribed on our headstones!!🤦‍♀️🥴😅

Dave

[F15Rules]

On 18/05/2022 at 10:37, Highburymark said:

How often do we read that modern coatings make the difference between today’s eyepieces and those of previous generations? And yet many of the jewels pictured in this thread seem to more than hold their own against current offerings. 

How true, Mark.

My ageing Mk 1 eyeballs often struggle to see any (usually subtle) differences in transmission due to coatings..but I do think that the excellent polish and finish of some of the vintage eyepieces talked about here are right up there with anything available today..

Dave

[Louis D]

10 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I wonder how many of us will have that epitaph inscribed on our headstones!!🤦‍♀️🥴😅

Dave

Definitely not me.  My kids accuse me and the wife of being hoarders.  I've still got 20+ year old digital cameras that are so obsolete I can't even read their memory cards anymore or get their batteries to charge, and yet I haven't chucked them for unknown psychological reasons.  I even boxed up my 200 and 300 CD changers and put them away just in case I ever want to go back to playing CDs instead of MP3s.  What is wrong with me? 🤪

On the plus side, my grown son has eyes on my old 1980s turntable to play his, and my, vinyl records.  It still works great and wasn't cheap to buy back in the day.

Here's proof of my eyepiece hoarding:

I did pass along the BST/Paradigm and HD-60 sets to my grown daughter now that she and her husband bought a house in a semi-rural area.  She also got some of the lower end 2" eyepieces for widest true field of view use and a couple of the reticle eyepieces for the 60mm RACI finder scope I loaned her.  I hadn't used that finder scope in 20 years, and yet I held onto it.  Now I know why. 😁

[Highburymark]

14 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Definitely not me.  My kids accuse me and the wife of being hoarders.  I've still got 20+ year old digital cameras that are so obsolete I can't even read their memory cards anymore or get their batteries to charge, and yet I haven't chucked them for unknown psychological reasons.  I even boxed up my 200 and 300 CD changers and put them away just in case I ever want to go back to playing CDs instead of MP3s.  What is wrong with me? 🤪

On the plus side, my grown son has eyes on my old 1980s turntable to play his, and my, vinyl records.  It still works great and wasn't cheap to buy back in the day.

Here's proof of my eyepiece hoarding:

I did pass along the BST/Paradigm and HD-60 sets to my grown daughter now that she and her husband bought a house in a semi-rural area.  She also got some of the lower end 2" eyepieces for widest true field of view use and a couple of the reticle eyepieces for the 60mm RACI finder scope I loaned her.  I hadn't used that finder scope in 20 years, and yet I held onto it.  Now I know why. 😁

Amazing collection Louis. 
Some people collect stamps, others vintage Ferraris. Never to be posted or driven in earnest again. With optics, you can use them over and over, night and day, in the knowledge that they’ll retain or increase their value. And no doubt there are some vintage classics of the future among those in your picture - perhaps a theme for another thread.

[Stu]

On 18/05/2022 at 10:37, Highburymark said:

How often do we read that modern coatings make the difference between today’s eyepieces and those of previous generations? And yet many of the jewels pictured in this thread seem to more than hold their own against current offerings. 

Without wishing to be a party pooper, I recall Moonshane being surprised at how much better the 17mm Ethos was than his 16mm T2 Nagler. I think he sold the Nag quite soon after to be replaced by a Delos.

 

[Don Pensack]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Definitely not me.  My kids accuse me and the wife of being hoarders.  I've still got 20+ year old digital cameras that are so obsolete I can't even read their memory cards anymore or get their batteries to charge, and yet I haven't chucked them for unknown psychological reasons.  I even boxed up my 200 and 300 CD changers and put them away just in case I ever want to go back to playing CDs instead of MP3s.  What is wrong with me? 🤪

On the plus side, my grown son has eyes on my old 1980s turntable to play his, and my, vinyl records.  It still works great and wasn't cheap to buy back in the day.

Here's proof of my eyepiece hoarding:

I did pass along the BST/Paradigm and HD-60 sets to my grown daughter now that she and her husband bought a house in a semi-rural area.  She also got some of the lower end 2" eyepieces for widest true field of view use and a couple of the reticle eyepieces for the 60mm RACI finder scope I loaned her.  I hadn't used that finder scope in 20 years, and yet I held onto it.  Now I know why. 😁

If I'd saved every eyepiece I've ever owned, you'd need to shoot the portrait in Panorama Mode. (over 350 at this point).

I just unloaded 10 of them, so I'm down to only 12.  How long that will be the case, I have no clue.

 

[Louis D]

21 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

If I'd saved every eyepiece I've ever owned, you'd need to shoot the portrait in Panorama Mode. (over 350 at this point).

I just unloaded 10 of them, so I'm down to only 12.  How long that will be the case, I have no clue.

I'd like to have seen that; although I'll agree holding onto 350 eyepieces at one time would be excessive even by my hoarding standards.  I do have well over 400 CDs boxed up in the house, though; so I just might have kept all 350 eyepieces were I in your shoes. 🤔 If I'd had the discretionary spending power I have today 20 years ago, I just might have ended up with such a collection.

Related to panoramas, remember the old Globuscope and Spin Shot film cameras for panoramas that were spring driven?  How far photo technology has advanced in 40 years is amazing.  Just about every smartphone can take really good panoramas now.

[Highburymark]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

Without wishing to be a party pooper, I recall Moonshane being surprised at how much better the 17mm Ethos was than his 16mm T2 Nagler. I think he sold the Nag quite soon after to be replaced by a Delos.

 

I guess most mainstream eyepiece coatings have improved substantially. But the Celestron Ultimas 30mm - for example - which I’ve just sold back to Steve (Saganite), have superb coatings. They’re right on a par with new TV Plossls.

And these must be 40 years old, maybe more……

[Louis D]

High end camera lenses have had advanced multicoatings since the mid-70s to mid-80s, depending on the manufacturer.  I'm sure similar coatings were applied to high end microscope eyepieces and objectives around the same time.  High end binoculars and spotting scopes soon followed.

It took a while longer for these coatings to migrate to entry level camera lenses and even longer for eyepieces not made by the leading optical houses.  Many entry level binoculars and spotting scopes are still singly coated.  Some eyepieces packaged with department store grade telescopes aren't coated at all.

I'm guessing that when Tele Vue started making eyepieces in the 80s, they did not have access to cutting edge coatings that were only available for internal production by the leading optical houses.  Throughout much of the 1990s, many Chinese eyepieces were only singly coated for similar reasons.  I'm further guessing that Taiwanese and then Chinese optical houses advanced their internal coating technology through the late 1990s and early 2000s and later.  As such, it's always a good idea to inquire about the age of eyepieces not made by Pentax, Vixen, Olympus, Nikon, Zeiss, and Leica who have all been using very good coatings for 25+ years.  I don't know much about Takahashi eyepieces and how their coatings have changed over the past 40 years.  Meade and Celestron eyepieces were in a similar situation to Tele Vue.  Their coatings were dependent on whatever their contracted manufacturers had available at the time.

[Stu]

Just to re-start a fun thread, this is my set of four Circle V 0.965” orthos. Just picked up a case from Dave so they all have one. 6, 7, 12.5 and 18mm. When I say set, I suspect there may be a 4 and 5 as well but not sure. Nice and sharp little things these are.

[John]

8 hours ago, Stu said:

Just to re-start a fun thread, this is my set of four Circle V 0.965” orthos. Just picked up a case from Dave so they all have one. 6, 7, 12.5 and 18mm. When I say set, I suspect there may be a 4 and 5 as well but not sure. Nice and sharp little things these are.

I used to use a set of those with my Astro Systems 150 newtonian and then the Vixen SP102M refractor many years ago. They are very sharp eyepieces.

I had to take a couple of them apart to clean the lenses and found that they were a 2+2 element design rather than the 1+3 element classic abbe ortho optical layout. Excellent performers all the same.

My oldest eyepiece is probably this one which I suspect is 20 years old at least now (they were launched in 1999). More of a vintage lump than a jewel though !

Edited February 20, 2023 by John

[paulastro]

My wife?  😊

[Stu]

9 hours ago, paulastro said:

My wife?  😊

Are you in need of brownie points Paul? 😉

[Stu]

10 hours ago, John said:

I used to use a set of those with my Astro Systems 150 newtonian and then the Vixen SP102M refractor many years ago.

Coincidentally I’ve been using them in exactly the same scope. Will give them a go in the Vixen FL102S too for more vintage observing.

[Stu]

I have the 40mm Kellner for low power, and an adaptor so I can use both 1.25” eyepieces as well as the 0.965”

[paulastro]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Are you in need of brownie points Paul? 😉

Always Stu 😅

[Louis D]

13 hours ago, paulastro said:

My wife?  😊

Ouch!!!  Watch out for a frying pan to the backside of your head. 😂

[paulastro]

4 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Ouch!!!  Watch out for a frying pan to the backside of your head. 😂

 Where actually was it that you met my wife Louis? 🙂

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, paulastro said:

 Where actually was it that you met my wife Louis? 🙂

At a summer internship.  She doesn't take kindly to being slighted.

[mikeDnight]

On 21/02/2023 at 11:18, paulastro said:

Always Stu 😅

[mikeDnight]

On 21/02/2023 at 09:52, Stu said:

I have the 40mm Kellner for low power, and an adaptor so I can use both 1.25” eyepieces as well as the 0.965”

When I bought my Vixen 102mm F13 achromat from Peter Drew back in 1986, it came with a 40mm Kellner just like that one. Honestly, in that Vixen the 40K was wonderful. I'd love to be able to turn the clock back to see if the eyepiece and scope really were as good as I remember them. I had some very memorable views of some brighter DSO's using that eye piece and scope. Of course being only F13,  it was a comet seeker. 

[John]

38 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

When I bought my Vixen 102mm F13 achromat from Peter Drew back in 1986, it came with a 40mm Kellner just like that one. Honestly, in that Vixen the 40K was wonderful. I'd love to be able to turn the clock back to see if the eyepiece and scope really were as good as I remember them. I had some very memorable views of some brighter DSO's using that eye piece and scope. Of course being only F13,  it was a comet seeker. 

I used to have a .965 inch Vixen 20mm Kellner with my Astro Systems newtonian and that was a great little eyepiece. Not the widest of views of course but very sharp and contrasty. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by John