10mm SPEERS-WALER REVIEW:
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March 25, 1998
Today I received a 10mm Speers-Waler (SW10) that my friend sent to me.
My first impression was, "My! This thing is long." 6 inches long from head to foot and about 2 inches wide. The SW10 was designed to go into a 1.25" focuser. To put it into an eyepiece case would require a two inch cut in the foam and a very deep eyepiece case. The typical cheapo eyepiece cases probably wouldn't be deep enough to hold it even if they did have slots for 2" accessories.
In all fairness, I had the same kind of problem with my 5.2mm Pentax XL and 7mm XL. The 5.2XL was larger than the 7mm XL. The XL's in that range required that the eyecup be screwed down in order to fit into an eyepiece case. In actual practice, I was too lazy to do a complete screw down of the eyepiece cup on the 7mm after each usage, and the pressure caused by the XL eventually broke the plastic hinge of one of my medium size Orion cases. The 5.2XL eyecup had to be screwed down to get the case to close.
My 10.5mm XL at 4.75" (4.25" with the eyecup screwed down) is a little more feasible to get into an eyepiece case. If a lot of eyepieces like the 10mm Speers-Waler and the 5.2XL are made and sold, then the eyepiece case makers will have to rethink their layout.
The 10mm Speers-Waler appears to be professionally made. Nice machining and a huge rubber grip down its length. That's the biggest rubber grip I have ever seen on an eyepiece. The SW10 also comes with a winged eyeguard, unless my friend put it on.
When I get an eyepiece, I like to hold it up to the florescent shop light for a look. The shop light test always seems to reveal a handful of difficulties. The 10mm Speers-Waler 'shop light tested' much the same as the University Optics 25mm MK-70 that I received yesterday.
The shop light revealed that the 10mm Speers-Waler is not going to have enough eye relief for its huge field of view. The 10.5mm XL easily passes the shop light test for adequate eye relief.
The shop light revealed another thing about the 10mm Speers-Waler. The used SW10 had eyelash and eyeball goo on it -- oils and such. If a used eyepiece has eyelash oil all over it, then that is another indication that the eyepiece does not have adequate eye relief for its field of view.
What good is a wide field of view if the eye relief is not adequate enough to let you comfortably see the whole field? You can always make due; but, it requires a different standard in my opinion for an eyepiece to achieve perfection.
So much for initial impressions, nothing is proven until the eyepiece is used on the stars and mountains.
Darwin Bagley
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March 26, 1998 Noon Mountain Standard Time
I decided to try the 10mm Speers-Waler (SW10) in comparison to my 10.5mm Pentax XL with my 80mm f/6.25 UO refractor on the mountains and landscape -- viewing straight through with no diagonal.
I found the Speers-Waler to be slightly more comfortable to use with my 80mm refractor on the landscape for a variety of reasons.
First, the snow capped mountains are very bright with sun reflecting off them. The white snow revealed that my 10.5mm XL is getting old. The XL focuses somewhere inside the housing between the sandwiches of lenses. Apparently a couple flecks of paint inside the XL dried enough to finally come off. Of course, the internal static electricity was kind enough to deposit the flecks right on the focal plane, where they will now be continuously visible with every bright object I decide to look at. I didn't see paint flecks in the SW10.
Second, is nothing that anyone should complain about, but just a personal preference. The image in the XL as you approach it expands from a 'pupil' to fill the whole field of view -- kind of like traveling through a tunnel watching the opening of the tunnel get larger as you approach the other side. The Speers-Waler is everything everywhere present as the eyepiece is approached. I prefer the methodology in the Speers-Waler. The reason being is that as you approach and get farther away from the XL through normal human wabbling while standing, the Pentax XL can sometimes tend to close in on you like a collapsing tunnel; kind of distracting. This single thing did the most to give the Speers-Waler a comfortable feeling while viewing, in my opinion.
Third, the Speers-Waler had a wider field of view. The roof across the street cutting dead center through the XL seemed to be slightly bent. The SW10 with the roof dead center had more of the roof, and it seemed to be straight all the way across. Now I did move the roof to the top of the field of view of the SW10 and also to the bottom of the SW10. The roof was noticably bent both at the top and bottom in the SW10, with the roof visibly straightening out as I moved the roof to the center of the field of view. So, the SW10 is not absolute perfection in this regard.
Fourth, the Speers-Waler seemed somewhat sharper on objects across the street than the XL. The view of the distant mountains was the same.
The XL was not without its victories.
The XL had absolutely no false color to the image. The SW10 had some annoying yellowish green color on the periphery. The SW10 was strange in that it's color on the fringes was like nothing that I had seen in the past. In the 35 Panoptic and 32mm UO Widescan, the color on the fringes was always present. The SW10's color is a different animal altogether. The SW10's yellow green color was always visible in my peripheral vision. But, when I went to look directly at it, it completely disappeared. Whatever you were looking at, at the time, with the SW10 was perfectly free of color whether it was in the center or at the field stop; but, there was always color in the peripheral vision, or color in what I was not looking at. A strange effect.
Both eyepieces are rather large and heavy for 10mm; so, I did find the contoured barrel, the little indentation in the chrome barrel to catch the set screw, of the 10.5XL to be very desirable. The SW10 has no contour in the barrel, and I found myself worrying at times that the eyepiece would fall out of the focuser due to its weight.
The eye relief of the SW10 is not adequate enough for a person to comfortably see the whole field of view. The field stop can be ever present in the 10.5 XL due to its generous 20mm eye relief. The XL handily wins in this department.
There was a dead tie between the eyepieces when it came to blackout during the daytime. Both will kidneybean noticably if you get too close or things are not just right. Panning the scope was equally horrific with each eyepiece due to the blackout that each suffered from.
There was also a lot of heat deteriorating the seeing, so the mountains did not look their best in either eyepiece.
The summary, with the SW10 and 10.5XL in my 80mm refractor:
Without any flecks of paint in the view with my 10.5XL, I would probably declare the whole experience to be a dead tie. Each eyepiece had desirable traits and each had noticable flaws. The flecks of paint in the view of the 10.5XL were enough to give the 10mm Speers-Waler the edge, as I didn't spend 20 minutes trying to clean the Speers-Waler.
The SW10 holds its own against the more expensive 10.5 XL.
Darwin Bagley
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March 30, 1998
I had a friend who purchased a 10mm Speers Waler eyepiece. With his slow scopes, he could see dust in the image, during the day and also on the moon.
A week or so later my friend purchased a second Speers Waler eyepiece, the 5-8mm Zoom. It too showed dust in focus while viewing the moon with his slow scopes, and he couldn't get it to focus with his faster 80mm LOMO refractor; so, he sent the Zoom back for a refund.
The 10mm Speers Waler was sent to me for a look, as I too have a couple of slow scopes. I was essentially told not to say anything about the dust problem unless I could see it for myself with my own eyes.
Today on the mountains I tried the SW10 and the 10.5XL in my six inch f/15 Quantum Maksutov. At first I didn't see any dust in focus when I was viewing trees and roofs across the street. As I focused on the mountains closer to infinity, I could see a whole bunch of dust just slightly out of focus with the Speers Waler.
However, dust in the image may be limited to only a small batch of Speers Walers -- I now know that the one I have suffers from the problem. Ignoring the dust, even more dramatic to me was the comparison of the SW10 to my Pentax 10.5 XL in my slow f/15 Quantum 6. It was no longer a tie. The Pentax XL was far superior. In my Quantum 6, the Speers Waler had tons of kidneybeaning. The SW10 had even more of the 'peripheral vision color' that I have mentioned before. The 10.5 XL was basic perfection at f/15. The XL was very difficult to get to blackout in any form, and it was sharp and color free through the whole field. The XL also gave a sharper and more contrasty view than the 10mm Speers Waler. There was no comparison, the 10.5XL was far superior to the 10mm Speers Waler at f/15.
I then put both eyepieces into my 6 inch f/10 Intes telescope. The dust of the Speers Waler was basically impossible to detect on the mountains; but, there were a couple of times while rotating the eyepiece that I could see the dust rotating. I had to go looking for it, though. The image of the mountains through the Pentax XL was again noticably superior than the same image through the Speers Waler in the f/10 telescope.
The Pentax XL has a lot more eye relief than the Speers Waler. You cannot comfortably see the full field of view in the Speers Waler due to the limited eye relief. The XL's full field of view is visible at all times.
In my relatively fast 80mm f/6.25 refractor, the Speers Waler held its own against the Pentax XL in many respects. In my slow f/15 Quantum Maksutov, the 10.5mm Pentax XL severely trounced the SW10. My guestimation from what I saw is that the Speers Walers are optimized for faster telescopes. And, contrary to logic, in comparison to the Pentax XL, the Speers Waler's performance deteriorated noticably in the slower telescopes. The slower the scope the better the Pentax XL performs, the slower the scope the worse the Speers Waler performs, in comparisons between the two.
I know of three other people in addition to my friend and me, who have seen dust in a Speers Waler, and know of a sixth person who had some stories to tell; however, my internet connection does not allow me to post to news groups in order to get a dialog going regarding the subject. Lurking on sci.astro.amateur I have noticed that the 'dust issue' in regards to the Speers Walers has been mentioned only once. So, apparently not too many people are running into it.
First of all, this may be a case where only a single batch were shipped with dust inside. In which case, the issue is probably not worth mentioning.
But in actual usage, I truly wonder how many people are using their Speers Walers in their f/12 Maksutovs or their f/15 refractors to view the moon. If you have a Speers Waler, have you ever viewed the moon with your Speers Waler? Also, how many of you are using your Speers Waler eyepieces to view the mountains with your f/15 telescopes?
Even if every Speers Waler has dust between the elements, very few people are using their Speers Walers during the daytime and on the moon; and, probably even fewer are using the eyepieces at f/15 or f/20. So, in actual usage, probably nobody is going to notice dust unless he or she is like my friend and has only slow telescopes used to view the moon at night.
My guestimations or summary when asked to speculate:
The bottom line is that you can get almost two Speers Walers for the price of one Pentax XL. If you only have fast telescopes and only view at night, I believe a Speers Waler will stand up to any Pentax XL for deep sky work. Due to the wider field of view of the Speers Walers, most people would probably find the Speers Walers superior for deep sky viewing; and the price cannot be beat. If you spend most of your time viewing the moon with your slow telescopes or viewing the mountains during the daytime at f/15, many of your Pentax XL's will probably blow away your comparable Speers Walers for color correction and contrast -- whether your Speers Walers have dust in the image or not. That's basically what my eyes are telling me so far.
But, it's just speculation based only upon one actual comparison and a handful of rumours. Take it all with a grain of salt.
Darwin Bagley
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March 31, 1998 19:00 Mountain Time
Using my Quantum 6 inch Maksutov, I compared a 10mm Speers Waler to a 10.5mm Pentax XL on the moon. The Pentax XL was sharper and brighter than the Speers Waler. Some of the difference may be partially attributed to the difference in magnification, but I don't think it can all be attributed to magnification.
I did love the massive wide field of view of the Speers Waler. Wide field and the moon go great together.
I could sense a lot of dust just outside of focus with the SW10. It was not as annoying as I thought it would be because I found I could actually ignore it and concentrate on the image of the moon, rather easily.
The flecks of paint that had shed off into my Pentax XL were actually more noticable; but, I found I could ignore them as well, as there were only three or so to be seen.
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April 2, 1998 17:30 to 21:00 Mountain Standard Time
I pulled out my 10 inch f/4.5 telescope.
Sun about ready to set, and nice blue skies. I started by looking at the quarter moon. I first compared the 10.5XL and the 10mm Speers Waler. The 10.5XL was clearer and sharper, and it did focus more easily. I detected the heat waves from cool down much more easily in the 10.5XL. The 10mm Speers Waler had a lot of blackout problems. I could also barely detect some of the dust in the outer extremeties of the image; only sensed it because I knew it was there. This time around I could actually sense that the SW10 has more magnification than the 10.5XL. I did like the huge wide field of view of the SW10; it was sufficient enough to get the whole moon into the field of view. There is something pleasing about being able to see the whole moon within the field of view of a higher power eyepiece.
While looking at the moon I noticed that all of the flecks of paint, that I had detected repeatedly every day over the last week on the focal plane of the 10.5XL, were gone. I hadn't cleaned the eyepiece nor done anything with it. I just stored it in a foam case. Maybe the static electricity of the foam was enough to lift and deposit the three or four flecks of paint some place else. I came in to check the eyepiece using my shop light. The last 12 times I had held the 10.5XL up to the shop light, I could clearly see the flecks of paint within the eyepiece and a single spot of dust as well. This time, I could see nothing. Strange.
Getting a little darker now. I then went back to the moon. Again the 10.5XL was sharper and easier to focus than the SW10; I figured the difference was probably due to the difference in magnification. The blackout problems of the Speers Waler decreased as it got darker. The view was closer to being the same in both eyepieces.
After a little dinner, I went back out to Orion. I compared the 10.5XL and SW10 on the Trapezium. I sensed the 5th 'E' star first in the SW10, and I sensed the harder 6th 'F' star first in 10.5XL. The stars in the XL were a touch more pinpoint. The stars on the very edge of the field do fall apart in the 10mm Speers Waler; but, that's easy to forgive because the SW10 has much more field of view that is usable, than the 10.5XL has. The 10.5XL was sharp all the way across. You could see all six stars of the trapezium right on the edge of the field with the 10.5XL.
Darkness. I attribute the difference in the on axis sharpness between the SW10 and 10.5XL, totally to the difference in the magnification. I figured the SW10 was not as sharp and the stars not as pinpoint as the 10.5XL, because the SW10 magnified more. Deep sky, and no blackout problems in either eyepiece, and by the time I was done I had seen the six stars of the Trapezium in both eyepieces. Over the past week or so the SW10 hadn't done that well overall, during the day; but, it had nothing to apologize for at night. It's huge field of view was definitely pleasing for deep sky work.
I could also sense the six stars of the Trapezium in my 7mm Pentax XL. The stars in the 7mm XL were not as sharp due to the increased magnification. The seeing was not up to the 7mm range either. Of course, by that time Orion was settling into the murk.
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Summary:
I currently have a 10.5mm Pentax XL; the 10mm Speers Waler has been sent to someone else.
Darwin Bagley