New Elcan apo refractor is spectacular

I went to the Photonics West SPIE convention this past week in San Jose
CA. There must have been well over 1000 optics companies in the
exhibition hall, an incredible turnout. I visited all I could in the
time I had, but stopped the longest at Elcan's exhibit, as they were
showcasing their new 5" f/5.5 apochromatic refractor. All optics and
mechanics were designed and manufactured at Elcan. They had it trained
on an overhead fire sprinkler at about 100X, several hundred feet away
across the San Jose Convention Center. The lighting appeared through a
diffraction grating to be high-brightness mercury vapor, so there was
plenty of violet and blue light reflecting from the chrome-plated fire
sprinkler, and several near-point source virtual images reflected in it.

The imagery was absolutely spectacular - the best I have ever seen in
any apo I've viewed through at any star party. I racked in and out of
focus, and the image blur was perfectly white regardless of focus travel
- absolutely no trace of any color fringing at all, an amazing feat
considering the mercury vapor lighting with all the violet and blue
lines present. The imagery at focus was so sharp, so perfectly defined,
and so bright and scatter-free that the visual impression was basically
that there was no telescope in the path. It was like I was up on a
cherry picker about a foot and a half from the sprinkler, directly
looking at it, even perhaps with cheaters on.

We discussed when they might introduce it commercially, and they are
still discussing how and when, so I know very little. They are looking
at a fair range of apertures and focal ratios. They were wisely and
carefully limiting their conversation, but did comment when asked that
the lens is "well below" 1/10 wave P-V in green light. I can only pass
on to you that their telescope produced the sharpest imagery I have ever
seen in 33+ years in optics and astronomy. I would love to have the
chance to star test it sometime.

Something to watch for in the near future.
Mike

From the looks of the profile on their web site (www.elcan.com), they
can probably make just about any optical element anyone would need. The
question I would ask is why would they bother tasking resources for a
tiny market segment like APO refractors? Those same resources could be
making medical or military optics with much higher profit margins -- the
kind that keep the shareholders happy.

Mike Jones wrote:

I went to the Photonics West SPIE convention this past week in San Jose
CA. There must have been well over 1000 optics companies in the
exhibition hall, an incredible turnout. I visited all I could in the
time I had, but stopped the longest at Elcan's exhibit, as they were
showcasing their new 5" f/5.5 apochromatic refractor. All optics and
mechanics were designed and manufactured at Elcan. They had it trained
on an overhead fire sprinkler at about 100X, several hundred feet away
across the San Jose Convention Center. The lighting appeared through a
diffraction grating to be high-brightness mercury vapor, so there was
plenty of violet and blue light reflecting from the chrome-plated fire
sprinkler, and several near-point source virtual images reflected in it.

The imagery was absolutely spectacular - the best I have ever seen in
any apo I've viewed through at any star party. I racked in and out of
focus, and the image blur was perfectly white regardless of focus travel
- absolutely no trace of any color fringing at all, an amazing feat
considering the mercury vapor lighting with all the violet and blue
lines present. The imagery at focus was so sharp, so perfectly defined,
and so bright and scatter-free that the visual impression was basically
that there was no telescope in the path. It was like I was up on a
cherry picker about a foot and a half from the sprinkler, directly
looking at it, even perhaps with cheaters on.

We discussed when they might introduce it commercially, and they are
still discussing how and when, so I know very little. They are looking
at a fair range of apertures and focal ratios. They were wisely and
carefully limiting their conversation, but did comment when asked that
the lens is "well below" 1/10 wave P-V in green light. I can only pass
on to you that their telescope produced the sharpest imagery I have ever
seen in 33+ years in optics and astronomy. I would love to have the
chance to star test it sometime.

Something to watch for in the near future.
Mike

Tim Killian wrote:
From the looks of the profile on their web site (www.elcan.com), they

can probably make just about any optical element anyone would need.
The
question I would ask is why would they bother tasking resources for a

tiny market segment like APO refractors? Those same resources could
be
making medical or military optics with much higher profit margins --
the
kind that keep the shareholders happy.

I agree
I have no doubt that this company can make a top quality visual APO
were they determined to do so. The problem is this company is mainly a
defense contractor. A military spec APO is not as good for astronomy as
an astronomy APO and vise versa.
There are two things that concern me about this telescope:
Unless they have invented a new type of glass it is impossible to make
an F5.5 refractor totally free of false colour over the entire visual
spectrum.
2. 1/10 wave in monochrome light is poor performance for a high end
APO.

I would wait to see how well this telescope performs under the stars.
Ian Anderson
www.customopticalsystems.com

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:07:26 -0600, Mike Jones
wrote:

I went to the Photonics West SPIE convention this past week in San Jose
CA. There must have been well over 1000 optics companies in the
exhibition hall, an incredible turnout. I visited all I could in the
time I had, but stopped the longest at Elcan's exhibit, as they were
showcasing their new 5" f/5.5 apochromatic refractor. All optics and
mechanics were designed and manufactured at Elcan. They had it trained
on an overhead fire sprinkler at about 100X, several hundred feet away
across the San Jose Convention Center. The lighting appeared through a
diffraction grating to be high-brightness mercury vapor, so there was
plenty of violet and blue light reflecting from the chrome-plated fire
sprinkler, and several near-point source virtual images reflected in it.

The imagery was absolutely spectacular - the best I have ever seen in
any apo I've viewed through at any star party.

Nice report; and I gather you are not easily impressed. The lack
of color on the vapor light is remarkable for such a fast 5 inches.

I think it would have been a more impressive demonstration at
300x , which for that aperture, would separate the great systems from
the average to good ones with more certainty. One advantage of testing
in a big indoor building is that the atmosphere could easily be more
stable than anything one gets at a star party, so comparing
performance of instruments in a possible ideal thermal environment
with those operating under rising/falling temperatures and atmospheric
turbulence would almost certainly favor the indoor demonstration, all
other things equal.

Dan Chaffee

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:07:26 -0600, Mike Jones
wrote:

I went to the Photonics West SPIE convention this past week in San Jose
CA. There must have been well over 1000 optics companies in the
exhibition hall, an incredible turnout. I visited all I could in the
time I had, but stopped the longest at Elcan's exhibit, as they were
showcasing their new 5" f/5.5 apochromatic refractor. All optics and
mechanics were designed and manufactured at Elcan. They had it trained
on an overhead fire sprinkler at about 100X, several hundred feet away
across the San Jose Convention Center. The lighting appeared through a
diffraction grating to be high-brightness mercury vapor, so there was
plenty of violet and blue light reflecting from the chrome-plated fire
sprinkler, and several near-point source virtual images reflected in it.

The imagery was absolutely spectacular - the best I have ever seen in
any apo I've viewed through at any star party. I racked in and out of
focus, and the image blur was perfectly white regardless of focus travel
- absolutely no trace of any color fringing at all, an amazing feat
considering the mercury vapor lighting with all the violet and blue
lines present. The imagery at focus was so sharp, so perfectly defined,
and so bright and scatter-free that the visual impression was basically
that there was no telescope in the path. It was like I was up on a
cherry picker about a foot and a half from the sprinkler, directly
looking at it, even perhaps with cheaters on.

We discussed when they might introduce it commercially, and they are
still discussing how and when, so I know very little. They are looking
at a fair range of apertures and focal ratios. They were wisely and
carefully limiting their conversation, but did comment when asked that
the lens is "well below" 1/10 wave P-V in green light. I can only pass
on to you that their telescope produced the sharpest imagery I have ever
seen in 33+ years in optics and astronomy. I would love to have the
chance to star test it sometime.

Something to watch for in the near future.
Mike

There is an Elcan near Toronto. Some of the optics that have
come out of that place are mind-boggling. Oddball stuff like
optically ground hollow spheres for the military. They also made a
very solid pair of binoculars for the military that you can drive
a car over and not damage. Aren't they an offshoot of Leitz?
-Rich

Very cool, but I have my concerns...

Raytheon just isn't very good in the commercial arena. They don't know how
to deal with vagarities of the market and with non-FAR accounting.

How do I know this...I was part of the Raytheon commercial electronics group
that got sold 1.25 years ago to another large company. It was so refreshing
not having to justify prod. dev. where a Govt. entity hadn't already ordered
$B of units or deal with an export admin. who thought it unpatriotic to
EXPORT to Taiwan because they're the bad guys (thought that taiwan was
China...)

If Elcan wants to truly be a commercial player they should endeavor to be
spun out somehow. That same thing happened to Raytheon Marine (small-boat
radars and other electronics) and several other Raytheon divisions.

PeterB
Sweet Hill Observatory

Dan Chaffee wrote:


Nice report; and I gather you are not easily impressed. The lack
of color on the vapor light is remarkable for such a fast 5 inches.

I think it would have been a more impressive demonstration at
300x , which for that aperture, would separate the great systems from
the average to good ones with more certainty. One advantage of testing
in a big indoor building is that the atmosphere could easily be more
stable than anything one gets at a star party, so comparing
performance of instruments in a possible ideal thermal environment
with those operating under rising/falling temperatures and atmospheric
turbulence would almost certainly favor the indoor demonstration, all
other things equal.

Dan Chaffee

Dan,
Thanks, and agree on higher power examination. I asked if we could go
up, and they had only brought one eyepiece to the exhibit. Would have
been nice to go up on power for sure. I also asked them about thermal
soak performance over a wide temperature range. Again, their answer was
carefully worded to only say that yes, it worked great over
temperature. Guess they are holding back details until they have their
marketing and advertising strategy worked out.

Funny that several of the other responses to my report were wondering
why Elcan would go commercial like this when so much money is to be made
in defense. I asked their guys essentially the same thing - after
non-recurring engineering and tooling development, start-up marketing
and advertising costs, setting up for customer and warranty support,
etc., how could there be any net profit to Elcan? They basically said
it was a business venture experiment and would see how it went.

Think I'll start a penny jar going for one of these when they hit the
market. If Elcan does not turn a reasonable profit, there may not be
very many of these ever made, which would be a shame.
Mike

Peter Bealo wrote:

Very cool, but I have my concerns...

Raytheon just isn't very good in the commercial arena. They don't know how
to deal with vagarities of the market and with non-FAR accounting.

How do I know this...I was part of the Raytheon commercial electronics group
that got sold 1.25 years ago to another large company. It was so refreshing
not having to justify prod. dev. where a Govt. entity hadn't already ordered
$B of units or deal with an export admin. who thought it unpatriotic to
EXPORT to Taiwan because they're the bad guys (thought that taiwan was
China...)

If Elcan wants to truly be a commercial player they should endeavor to be
spun out somehow. That same thing happened to Raytheon Marine (small-boat
radars and other electronics) and several other Raytheon divisions.

PeterB
Sweet Hill Observatory

Agree on the Raytheon comments - that may be part of why the guys I was
visiting with were being cagy. It may well be a spin-off business, and
it may well not go very far. As I replied to Dan Chaffee, there may
only be a few of these incredible telescopes ever built and sold if the
profits don't come in. An even greater reason to try to buy one while
they can be bought.
Mike

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 13:25:16 -0600, Mike Jones
wrote:

Dan Chaffee wrote:


Nice report; and I gather you are not easily impressed. The lack
of color on the vapor light is remarkable for such a fast 5 inches.

I think it would have been a more impressive demonstration at
300x , which for that aperture, would separate the great systems from
the average to good ones with more certainty. One advantage of testing
in a big indoor building is that the atmosphere could easily be more
stable than anything one gets at a star party, so comparing
performance of instruments in a possible ideal thermal environment
with those operating under rising/falling temperatures and atmospheric
turbulence would almost certainly favor the indoor demonstration, all
other things equal.

Dan Chaffee

Dan,
Thanks, and agree on higher power examination. I asked if we could go
up, and they had only brought one eyepiece to the exhibit. Would have
been nice to go up on power for sure. I also asked them about thermal
soak performance over a wide temperature range. Again, their answer was
carefully worded to only say that yes, it worked great over
temperature. Guess they are holding back details until they have their
marketing and advertising strategy worked out.

Funny that several of the other responses to my report were wondering
why Elcan would go commercial like this when so much money is to be made
in defense. I asked their guys essentially the same thing - after
non-recurring engineering and tooling development, start-up marketing
and advertising costs, setting up for customer and warranty support,
etc., how could there be any net profit to Elcan? They basically said
it was a business venture experiment and would see how it went.

Think I'll start a penny jar going for one of these when they hit the
market. If Elcan does not turn a reasonable profit, there may not be
very many of these ever made, which would be a shame.
Mike

I guess the question is, how much will something like that be?
Now that AP has jacked up prices, they (Elcan)at least will be able
to charge enough to bring back a profit, if they're goal is
to be competitive with other apo makers.
I wonder though if their scopes are being made solely on machines?
Given things like the Meade ETX optics, why couldn't apo optics be
done completely hands off, if they are of a limited size, 5"?
Could they (after accounting for the price of the glass) simply
turn out optics like that on an assembly line?
-Rich

RichA wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 13:25:16 -0600, Mike Jones
wrote:
I guess the question is, how much will something like that be?
Now that AP has jacked up prices, they (Elcan)at least will be able
to charge enough to bring back a profit, if they're goal is
to be competitive with other apo makers.
I wonder though if their scopes are being made solely on machines?
Given things like the Meade ETX optics, why couldn't apo optics be
done completely hands off, if they are of a limited size, 5"?
Could they (after accounting for the price of the glass) simply
turn out optics like that on an assembly line?
-Rich

It will cost about the same as other APOs. Glass accounts for most of
the overhead of making an APO. The cost of glass is subject to the
price of energy and hence ever increasing.
Ian Anderson
www.customopticalsystems.com