Optical performance has always been limited by the glasses employed. Those
who claim to have a secret configuration that uses ordinary
glass, but
eliminates color are just hyping a poor product. But we have finally
achieved a breakthrough in
glass manufacturing that allows us to bring
color-free refractor performance at affordable prices. The breakthrough came
with the development of new
glass using (as you will see) avenues not
previously explored. These possibilities were not investigated before
because the materials were not available.
I'll cut to the chase and give you the overall description, and then go into
the glass that made it all possible. Basically, we developed a glass with so
much extra dispersion, it doesn't even fit into the ED or SD categories.
This is miles ahead of fluorite. Our problem is that while we were able to
develop this glass, there are tremendous homogeneity problems. In all
honesty, we will probably never be able to make good blanks larger than
45-50mm in diameter. That of course made it impossible to produce anything
larger than a finderscope. At least, that's what we first thought.
Then we went back to the drawing boards. Because we have 14.34 times the
color dispersion of even the best ED glasses, we can place the correction
farther downstream in the optical path. This sort of breakthrough was first
accomplished with the chromacor, which was an amazing breakthrough in
itself. But with this glass, we can place the correction even farther
downstream --- into the eyepiece itself! This breakthrough eliminated the
collimation difficulties. After all, the eyepiece is always going to be
collimated with itself. The solution had been staring us in the face for
weeks, and when we finally realized how it should work, we were amazed we
hadn't seen it before. And of course, with this glass, we gained all kinds
of new flexibility in the design of the eyepiece. By coupling this new glass
(still unnamed, we are thinking having a contest to pick a new name for the
glass) with a negative fluorite element, we were able to not only produce
five color crossings (which in itself is unheard of color correction) but
also flatten the field by 97%, reduce the astigmatism by 83%, and have only
a tiny trace of residual pincushion. Spherical aberration and
spherochromatism are completely eliminated! Best of all, this was all
accomplished while paired with an ordinary Steinheil achromat. And for those
who want short tubes, this was a 6" at f/6! With smaller apertures we can go
even faster, and still maintain unheard of correction levels. And with only
two elements, contrast is unbelievable! You won't believe what this will do
for your views of Jupiter. It would be silly hype to say it rivals Hubble,
but it is safe to say that it will flat out blow your socks off.
So how did this glass come about? I'd like to claim it was genius in
pursuing what we knew would happen. But the truth is, we got lucky. Just
like the discovery of penicillin, it was an accidental contamination that
produced the glass. Only in this case, the contaminant was in a crucible
used to melt the glass. It came about because of a military project that was
running concurrently with the glass experimentation. The goal of the
military project was to find a way to glass-encapsulate depleted uranium
fragments from expended tank rounds so they could be safely disposed of. A
crucible from that project accidentally made its way to the opposite end of
the foundry floor and was used for a separate glass trial.
At first we couldn't believe the performance of the new glass. We were sure
the test instruments were out of calibration. Once we found the results were
true, we called for a party. But the next day, we were about to go crazy. We
couldn't get the next batch to have the same results. That's when we
discovered a crucible had been switched. With that clue, we were able to
start a new line of experimentation, knowing what we were needing. Within a
week, we had the formula perfected.
It isn't really too shocking. If you think about it, lead crystal has been
known for years for its brilliance. But no one could make lead crystal with
the size and homogeneity needed for objectives. If you could, a simple flint
companion would bring very good color correction, nearly what is achieved
using fluorite. But the density of depleted uranium dwarfs even that of
lead. And the effect on color dispersion has to be seen to be believed.
Depleted uranium doping is amazing!
We are busy this week with production. Next week we will have a simultaneous
opening at 14 major suppliers of telescopes. I can't give out the names of
those who will carry it, as we are still in negotiations with a few. It is
possible one or two may be added. It is also possible one may be dropped if
he leaks any more info! (You know who you are and you don't want to be the
one banned from carrying our line!) But we will be making the announcement
next Thursday night, with the shops all set to open for orders on Friday
morning. Each of those dealers will have a maximum of 25 eyepieces, so I
expect they will go in minutes. But we are ramping up production and hope to
have filled all backorders by mid-Summer. Each dealer will have their own
promotion and means of determining who the first 25 customers are. We are
really working hard to make it fair, and to insure no one person can buy
multiple eyepieces for resale. Every effort will be made to get these into
the hands of actual observers, and keep them away from the pond scum who
would try to extort high prices through resale.
But enough of my ranting, back to the eyepieces --- With only two elements,
the light throughput and contrast will be impossible to beat. FOV will range
from 61 degrees (4mm) to 68 degrees (55mm), Eye relief will range from 17mm
for the 4mm model, to 23 mm of eye relief with the 55 mm model. It is a bit
expensive, buying your correction in the eyepiece, since it means you need
an entire set. But they will be priced only a little higher than Radians,
and many people already have a set of Radians. Still, a full set will
produce slight to moderate pincushion in your wallet.
Of course, many are now wondering what good this will do them, since they
observe with a big dob or an SCT. We thought about this for quite a while
before we were finally struck by the obvious. Again, the incredible
dispersion of this glass gives us all kinds of freedom in eyepiece design.
For large newts, this means coma can be eliminated in the eyepiece. In this
case, we did not even need fluorite, since we did not have any color
correction needed. With that added degree of freedom, we can reduce the coma
in a 24" f/4 newt to levels you will never detect. Of course, this opens new
doors in scope design. The previous drawback to large dobs was navigating
that tall ladder in the dark. With this correction, manufacturers will now
have the freedom to build newts at f/2, eliminating tall ladders. While this
would have meant ridiculous coma and field curvature, we can eliminate it at
the eyepiece, giving seeing-limited performance across a full 2" *flat*
field! We have only produced a couple of these eyepieces, and will probably
be selling them through the better dob manufacturers. Incidentally, in the
past, advertisers bragged about "diffraction-limited optics." Our new
eyepieces eliminate so many problems you will finally be able to say your
scope is limited only by the seeing. Until someone comes up with a better
term, we are saying they are "seeing-limited." Maybe we should have a
contest not just to find a new name for the glass, but also to come up with
a catchier term than "seeing limited."
But what about SCTs? An SCT is the ultimate compromise, giving good aperture
with a very short (easily transported) tube. But you are still locked into
certain focal lengths and the large CO. We can't eliminate the CO
obstruction. Claiming to do so would be silly hype. But think about it ---
What is the problem with a large CO? It damages contrast. But contrast loss
is a function of both scope and eyepiece. And we have virtually eliminated
contrast loss at the eyepiece. So you will now get the same contrast as an
unobstructed scope that uses conventional eyepieces. And you still will have
the advantage of aperture and portability! Additionally, with this glass, it
was child's play to flatten the field at the same time.
The applications are limitless. We are now working on camera lenses,
barlows, dial-in zonal control, dial-in correction for those with
astigmatism, proprietary attenuation, kidney bean elimination and more. It
brightens your view, whitens your teeth and cheers up even the gloomiest
observers. And if you leave your scope running on your car battery too long,
you can run jumper cables to the undepleted portion of the uranium, and be
assured your car will start in the morning --- even after the longest ccd
sessions.
Years ago, a chance contamination in a Petri glass gave us penicillin, and
pointed the way to the whole field of antibiotics. Now a chance
contamination in a glass foundry has given us a new glass and opened a whole
new field of optics.
Clear Skies
Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try the Lunar Observing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/
Lunar Picture of the Day http://www.lpod.org/
***********************************************
NEWS EMBARGO UNTIL APRIL 1
***********************************************
|
