Is my eyepiece damaged?

I have a 40mm Meade Series 3000 Plossel that I've had for years. I was cleaning the top element to get rid of a couple of years of accumulated eyelash grease, dew stains, etc. As I was cleaning it, I noticed that the top element felt like it moved. I didn't apply too much pressure so I couldn't tell if it rocked up and down, or right to left. As you would expect, I was concerned. It has never been dropped (that I know of) and there are is damage to the tube that would make me think that one of my fiends or kids dropped it. I took it outside with my 8" Dob last night and it appeared to be fine. The stars in the center - and on the edge - of the field of view looked normal. Is this normal? Has anyone else had this happen?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

A slightly loose lens is not a real problem, even if it rattled slightly when shaken. You could see if the ring is loose that holds the lens group together and tighten it, but if it does not rattle I would not worry too much.

Thus my mentioning the use of needle nose pliers to tighen the ring. If you find a semi sharp pair, they spread out to fit in the two grooves. I have many custom made tools for this, but the needle nose pliers work the best because they're a fit all type of tool. Mind you, slip with the tips and your flat black is toast.

I appreciate your tapping on the ep while tightening. You can't write this usually, only teach it. Tap, tighten, tap tighten until centered and tight. We usually indicate the elements on extreme centered optics, but in the case of stacked lenses in eps I can't think of any other way of doing it. If your elements keep coming loose, you need to do what I described because they're still not centered and are moving. Even then, your're not crunching down on it so it's possible for stuff to get loose, so tighten them again.