Antares 8.6mm W70 Uncovered...

I know most of you guys are into Naglers and stuff so this might not be of interest. The other day I was looking at my 8.6mm W70 and comparing it to the Generic Synta 66 degree Widefield. In a telescope, these two eyepieces give identical views and outside of the fancier aluminum barrel, they appear to be identical mechanically.

With a bit of tugging and twisting I was able to get that fancy looking cover off and see what was underneath... The 8.6mm W70 is nothing more than the generic Synta with a cover glued over it...

(In the photo, the eyepiece on the left is a partially disassembled W70 showing the generic label, on the right is the generic synta 66 degree eyepiece with the printing worn off.)

jon

Attached Image:

Even if you don't care about these particular eyepieces, it's definitely interesting. I hadn't imagined that the similarities would go quite that far, although frankly, I'm not surprised.
--
Mike

Just tried with my 25mm version. I can tell you the lenses in this size are indeed in the housing (if I remove the retaining ring under the barrel the lenses and spacers will slide out - this ring is screwed directly into the W70 housing). This is not a 66 deg WA slipped into the outer overing of the W70. The 25mm is a different design then the other W70's though (I believe 8 lens) - so this could account for the difference.

Now my 14mm W70, DOES appear to have a black barrel pressed into the outer W70 covering - and unlike the 25mm I can screw the whole lens assembly out of the barrel. My guess is that at least with this eyepiece it would also be a "repackaged" 66wa.

So my guess is other then the 25mm, these things just have fancy outer coverings. I wonder if they use different field stops to account for the 1-2 deg difference of the marketing and the slight MM difference in FL?

Good catch! Judging from the wear, someone likes that
Synta alot.

You all have better eyes than I do. I couldn't really figure out the photo! Does someone have a picture of a Synta ultrawide with the lettering still on it for comparison? Jon, does the outer sleeve come off entirely to show the similarity better?

In any event, I share you sentiments that there is something tawdry about their gluing a sleeve over a Synta and citing a different focal length and fov and making it seem like it's a different eyepiece or design!

Now, there have been reports, pro and con, about whether the basic Syntas had better blackening (or worse) than the Orion Expanse. Anyone know about that?

By the way, it really is a nuisance when the lettering comes off... and it's seems to happen much faster with certain eyepieces.