Through a very intensive internet search, I finally chanced upon a little known, unlisted (i.e. not on the NYSE) family owned business that made mostly a curious collection of ground glass items with few discernable practical uses but had the unnerving ability to spontaneously combust when left pointed at an intense light source, such as the sun.
I saw that they co-incidentally had some eyepiece models and thus I selected one that was touted to provide a "majestic wide field", since I figured a finderscope should have a wide field if it was to find anything at all! As my finderscope had a focal length of 300mm (12"), I selected the Ethical 13" model since it most closely matched my finder's focal length. I'm not quite sure though why an eyepiece would be named "Ethics" but I guess maybe that reflects the honest, integrity-ness nature of its creator.
When it arrived, the first thing that surprised me was its size (see picture below): It was more than half as long as my finder! It also weighed just about as much!
Unfortunately when I looked through the eyepiece as attached to my finder, I COULD NOT SEE ANY STARS! The sky was blindingly bright even though this was only mid-morning and the Morning Star was no where to be seen.
After this disappointment, I decided to use it to look at some of the surrounding buildings. It was immediately noticable that the field of view was not tremendously larger than in my 23mm eyepiece! After all, this eyepiece was supposed to see 100deg while the 23mm was supposed to see 50 deg only!
Having said that, the objects in the Ethical 13 were much larger than in the 23mm and better defined. I could finally see the words in the poster in the neighbouring window. I can't repeat them here but now I wish I didn't know what it said.....
One major drawback of the new eyepiece was that it had no reticle! This made it very difficult to guess the exact centre of the view. Drawing crosshairs on the eyepiece lens with a magic marker only made the picture smudgy and blur unfortunately.
I guess this new eyepiece is not well suited for my purpose of using it as a finder eyepiece. I shall have to relegate it to use as a regular eyepiece on my VMC200L, which is not a bad thing since the VMC has eaten up quite a few of my other eyepieces! The main problem lies in the fact that my VMC has a 60mm focuser (why?!?!) while my biggest eyepieces are 2" (50mm) so everytime I point the telescope down at the ground (to try to see what's making those rustling noises in the grass/bushes), my eyepieces seem to disappear with a loud "klonk", leaving a circular marking on the secondary corresponding to the size of a 2" skirting. Sometimes I think that's the accretion disc of a black hole that must be sitting behind my secondary mirror resulting in the sucking in and disappearance of all my eyepieces!
****Disclaimer: This post does not constitute any recommended action, modification or use of any of the above described equipment****
) , and come to focus.
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."