Say Mike! et al

Say Mike,

I've wanted to ask if you have a thought(s) about some designer/manufacturer making an ultrawide zoom eyepiece. Say, 80*, 5-30mm f/l and 2.0" barrel size. Might have to be slightly variable in FOV.

I know it would be three things: Expensive. Optically challenging with inevitable trade offs. Mechanically challenging with some trade offs as well.

The idea would be a general purpose eyepiece that would relieve us from playing that tiresome 'eyepiece checkers' game all night long. I would love to see single f/l eyepieces become semi-obsolete. Surely we would still need a couple of exquisite planetary eyepieces, maybe others.

If it's possible, it probably isn't something a manufacturer would like to do for fear of sales losses in the single f/l designs. However, I'd give up a thousand or more if say Al Nagler offered one.

Yes there are three or four good 1.250" zooms offered today and I've owned each of them. I use 'em for grab and go but the field of view suffers just enough that I have to grab my 350 lb. eyepiece case and think about loading and unloading the focuser some 10,000 times before dawn when going to a dark site.

Maybe it's a bit early in optical evolution, but when someone does spend some capitol to produce one, Their name will live on as a revolutionary dude. 8O

Mike and anyone with a thought.......

Thanks,
John

I'm a mathematician, not an optical designer, and that sounds like a very advanced optical design question. I guess I can conceive of such a thing, same as you. It would be fantastic.
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Mike

Well, it wouldn't have to be 80° to be revolutionary. A 60°, but even a 50°zoom of that range, if it were parfocal and did not experience "barreling" such as the Leica, Pentax and Zeiss zooms do would be pretty cool. If it had decent eye relief and an AFOV that was consistent through the range that would be nice and if it provided a flat field, edge to edge that would be spectacular. If you could do this in a package that did not exceed 16-18oz or $500.00, I believe many of us would jump at the chance to buy one.

I also think a 7-18mm Radian Zoom would be fabulous. With that, a 3-6 Nagler zoom and a 31 Nagler, many of us would be set.

Dreaming . . .

Randy

Some of the digital cameras have zoom ratios of 10 to 1 and greater. My digital minicam has a ratio of 26 to 1. You can buy a 28 to 300mm lens for your slr. Used as an eyepiece they are not suitable, with narrow fields and other problems. It seems to this amateur that a clever designer could solve some of those problems for telescope use. I would surely be a customer if it were offered for under $1000.