The Authors - David Hall

● David Hall is an Electrical Engineer designing electronic circuits for almost 30 years. Most of that time was in the aerospace industry with Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas in St. Louis, MO. Currently, he designs laser electronics for Cutting Edge Optronics, Inc. in St. Charles, MO.

● His primary astronomy interests are observing, ccd imaging, and astronomy related software development.

The Authors – John Duchek

● John has a doctorate in Organic Chemistry. He has been a professor, pilot plant manager, plant troubleshooter, and laboratory research chemist in his over 30 years in the chemical industry. He currently works for Tyco-Healthcare in St. Louis, MO.

● His primary astronomical interests are observing and photography (ccd and 35 mm).

An Eyepiece Coating Experiment

● Program suggests eyepieces can be very important in light loss in your telescope.

● The coating effectiveness

– Depends on its thickness

– varies with wavelength

What do the terms mean?

● Coated or single-coated: one air-to-glass surface(ATGS) is coated with a single layer of antireflection material, usually MgF2

● Fully Coated: All ATGS are single-coated

● Multicoated: at least one ATGS surface has been coated with multiple layers, the rest are single coated or not coated.

● Fully Multicoated: all ATGS are covered with multiple coatings.

Single Coating (MgF2)

● Transmission dependent on wavelength, substrate's index of refraction, thickness of the coating, and angle of the incident light

● Coating is designed so the relative phase shift between beam reflected from upper and lower surface destructively interfere (cancel)

● Optical thickness must be ODD NUMBER OF (/4) where is the wavelength being optimized. (gives ½ path difference)

● (Discussion from www.edmundoptics.com/TechSupport/)

MgF2 Characteristics

● “The principle of coatings is to reduce the light reflecting on the glass surface. If the coating has a ¼ wavelength thickness and the glass an index of refraction higher than the coating the 2 reflections are in phase opposition and cancel. For 1 multicoated surface, the transmission can increase up to 3.5%”

Http://www.astrosurf.com/lombry/reports-epsuggestions4.html

How do you know your coating is working as advertised?

● Light Losses (if coating working properly)– No Coating ~ 4% lost/surface

– Fully Coated ~2% lost/surface

– Multicoated ~ 1.5% lost/surface

– Fully Multicoated ~ <=1% lost/surface

● ¼ of 550 nm is 0.000000137 meters or 1370 angstroms. One MgF2 molecule is ~2.5 Angstroms.... coating should be 550 molecules thick.

● If the coating is twice as thick, the waves will reinforce, not cancel. The thickness is critical!!!!

The Experiment

● Using an optical bench, equipped with a green laser (550 nm), measure the % transmittance of a variety of eyepieces.

● Dave Hall had access to the necessary equipment at his job at CEO lasers.

Set up

● Laser is on the right.

● The eyepiece to be tested is just in front of the detector.

● Dave is adjusting the detector to collect the whole light beam.

Experimental Limitations

● We found that we were unable to get consistent results on any eyepieces under 10mm, probably because we couldn't get the lens close enough to the detector to get all the light

● 12 mm results should be taken with a grain of salt.

The method for each eyepiece (1)

● Measure the dark voltage Vd and the light voltage Vl with no eyepiece in place.

● The total voltage Vt=Vl-Vd

● Put the eyepiece in.

The method for each eyepiece (2)

● Take 5 voltage readings for each eyepiece after rotating the eyepiece 90 degrees. (verify that 1st and last are the same)

● Average the 4 readings and subtract Vd from the average to get (Va)

● % transmittance = (Va/Vt)*100

1.25” Eyepiece ResultsBrand Model Type FL mm Coatings # of lenses% trans Comments

Tele-Optics Kellner Kellner 40 ??? 3 or 4 98.6Celestron Orthoscopic Orthoscopic 25 Fully coated 98.2University Optics Orthoscopic Orthoscopic 25 Multi-coated 97.3Orion Ultrascopic Orthoscopic 20 Multi-coated 97.1Meade SuperPlossl Plossl 26 Multi-coated 95.7University Optics Orthoscopic Orthoscopic 18 Multi-coated 95.7Orion Ultrascopic Orthoscopic 25 Multi-coated 95.5

95.00%Orion Sirius Plossl 26 Fully coated 94.5No-name Erfle Erfle 32 ??? 94.2 1.25"Orion Sirius Plossl 17 Fully coated 92.0Tele-Optics Tele-Optic Kellner 18 ??? 3 or 4 91.6Celestron Ultima Modified plossl 24 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 91.3Celestron (repeat) Ultima Modified plossl 18 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 90.9 Repeat of same lensCelestron Ultima Modified plossl 30 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 90.8Celestron Ultima Modified plossl 18 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 89.8University Optics Konig Konig 32 Multi-coated 89.2 1.25"Celestron Ultima Modified plossl 35 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 87.1University Optics Orthoscopic Orthoscopic 12.5 Multi-coated 86.5Celestron Ultima Modified plossl 12.5 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 86.3Celestron Plossl Plossl 26 Multi-coated 85.5Celestron Ultima(Diff. Lens)Modified plossl 12.5 Fully multicoated 4 to 5 84.6 Different lensApogee Erfle Erfle 17.5 81.4 Junky lensNo name Kellner Kellner 17.5 ??? 74.2 Junky lens

2” Eyepiece Results

Brand Model Type FL mm Coatings # of lenses % trans

Home-made Erfle Erfle 27 ??? 5 97.5Edmund Scientific Erfle Erfle 32 ??? ? 90.9University Optics Konig Konig 32 Multi-coated ? 88.2Home-made Rini Erfle 55 ??? ? 81.1Russell Konig Konig 19 Blue coating ? 79.6Home-made Rini Erfle 45 ??? ? 78.4

Conclusions

● The 12mm results are suspect…they are clustered at a low value. Transmission overpowered by light losses (light missing detector).

● Fully multicoated did not fare well in this test (85-90%)

● Multicoated orthoscopics, and particularly UO orthoscopics are superior at high light transmission (95-98%)