Zeiss Telementor Review
Telementor image scanned from the Zeiss catalogue.
I spotted it on Ebay and it’s an example of what’s possible if you are
willing to sift through the flotsam on that website. It was clearly from a
house clearance and the guy didn’t have a clue what it was, which was a mint
Zeiss Telementor in its original packaging on its equatorial
mount and equipped with a range of Zeiss 0.965” eyepieces (not to be confused
with the Abbe orthos, though still of high quality).
In the end, a mate bought it as I was abroad at the time. I think he paid a
couple of hundred pounds.
The Telementor
was made by Zeiss in communist East Germany as a response, so the story goes,
to a government edict that all schools shall have a telescope (and who said communism
was all bad), hence the name! Today the Telementor is
much prized for its high optical and mechanical quality, although unfortunately
is has also been swept up in the general collector’s mania for all things
Zeiss, so prices from dealers can be very high and some are a bit jaded from a
hard life at school.
The box for the Telementor in this review came wrapped in a big piece of
heavy orange sailcloth or tarpaulin – all part of the “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore’ Telementor
mystique.
Design and
Build
Lens
The 63mm F13 (840mm F.L.)
achromatic doublet nestles in a beautifully-made black metal cell (nothing like
your typical 60mm achromat), but you never get to see
it because it sits way down inside the OTA. These lenses have a very strong
reputation for quality and from what I’ve seen of bench tests that reputation
is warranted to some degree. The same bench tests indicate a level of chromatic
aberration similar to a fast ED doublet APO.
Tube
Just a 63mm scope it may be, but
the Telementor is both quite large and unsusual in design; it’s also weighs about as much as a
truckload of Chinese 60mm scopes on account of being built from spare
battleship armour (well that’s how it feels). The long, grey metal tube is a Telementor hallmark and the OTA does have a certain
functional beauty. There is no optical finder, just a pair of gunsights at top and bottom of the tube: they work and
there’s less for over-enthusiastic school children to snap-off.
Focuser
The Telementor
focuses by an internal mechanism which moves the objective lens up and down
inside the tube; the eyepiece is fixed. You focus using a single knob sticking vertically
out a good way up from the Eyepiece end on the right hand side (not so great if
you’re left handed, but then again I think communist regimes taught all kids to
be right handed anyhow). Another bad point about this system is that the Telementor is really only set-up to use 0.965” EPs –
adapting it to take 1.25” ones is surprisingly hard. However, consider that all
these quirks confer idiot-proof classroom ruggedness and they start to make
sense.
Mounting
The Telementor’s
mount is a simple, robust, non-driven (in most cases) German equatorial,
finished in the same grey as the tube. The OTA sits in a proprietary dovetail.
The mount has precise setting circles and nice chunky slow motion controls
which are usefully colour-coded to indicate which ones you should twiddle in
the dark and which not (maybe I’m an idiot, but how many times have I reached
for the wrong identical-silver knob on my P2Z?). The mount is supported by a
lovely beech-wood tripod with sculpted and curved wooden legs and blue metal
parts. The tripod reminds me of school desks and chairs from my youth; if only
Tele Vue tripods were built like this (Sorry Mr Nagler)!
In Use
The Telementor
surprises in use and is another example of the way poor optical quality can
fool us into thinking small scopes don’t work in general. It may be just a 63mm
achromat, but given its excellent optical quality and a focal ratio well outside the 1.22D
criterion for achromats, the Telementor
gives sharp, high-contrast, colour-free views.
Of course this isn’t much of a
deep sky scope, the small aperture, old fashioned single coatings and long focal
length see to that. No, the Telementor is famously at
its best on two targets: The Moon and double stars.
The Moon through the Telementor is reminiscent of Tak’s
fluorite doublets: very sharp and cool, with every minute tonal contrast
between Maria lava and wispy ray perfectly delivered in icy greys; no purple achro-wash here. The supplied Zeiss Eyepieces work well and
that strange focuser does its job smoothly and precisely too. The mount is
equally smooth and precise in its slow motion controls.
As promised, the Telementor splits doubles right down to theoretical limits
and in the brief tests I did it surprised me by managing both Epsilon Lyrae and Rigel.
Summary
The only negative thing about the
Telementor (apart from the price of accessories) is that
for a 63mm telescope it is not that portable, not really grab-and-go: the
down-side of that classroom-surviving quality is surprisingly high weight.
Overall, the Telementor
has a rugged, serious, dare I say scholarly charm that is hard to explain. I would
like one, but I have enough small refractors.
As a final note, I should say
that the friend who bought the Telementor eventually
sold it at vast profit to help fund a Harley Davidson; he now regrets it and
says the Telementor was his favourite scope. Given
that he owns or has owned various Tele Vues and Takahashis, that’s saying a lot.
Highly recommended, but not at
Zeiss collectors’ prices.