A strange Zeiss mono-tube

From: Kevin Sunley (umsunle0_at_REMOVEcc.umanitoba.ca)
Date: 07/16/04 

Date: 16 Jul 2004 03:07:08 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have an obscure question that I'm hoping someone may know
something about.

It concerns a West German Zeiss straight (non-inclined) microscope
mono-tube, such as one used to mount a camera. This tube (see picture)
has a collar to allow the tube length to be adjusted, but this feature
is not directly related to my question.

The tube can be seen here:

http://www.sunley.ca/microscope/images/images.html

.. click on the "Zeiss non-inclined mono-tube with lens".

Now comes the question. It concerns the lens that is factory mounted
inside the tube, which can be seen if you look closely at the
picture showing the bottom of the tube.

The person I bought the tube from was quite confident that its
origin was from a Zeiss microspectrophotometer which was built with
some quartz optics. As it turns out the lenses do not seem to be
quartz (no transmission below 340nm), but it still seems to be an
interesting part.

Firstly, the lens inside the tube, although it seems to be factory
mounted, seems to be a post-manufacturing addition to a regular
adjustable monotube. This is because the item was painted prior to
milling out portions of the tube's inside to fit the lens mount.
This might indicate that it may be a part from a unit which was not
manufactured in a great quantity.

Secondly, although my first thought was that it was for changing the
tube length of the optical path, the lens instead seems to function as
one of two things:

1) a permenantly mounted bertrand lens (most likely)
2) some sort of permentantly mounted eyepiece,

This is because if I use the tube with a Zeiss eyepiece, I see a
very sharp, clear, and magnified view of the back focal plane of the
objective.

If I use the tube without an eyepiece, a view of the specimen can be
seen just by looking down the tube, but it is hard to focus on, and
you have to keep your eye very(!) close to the tube.

So I'm leaning towards a bertrand lens system, but not ruling out it
being a lens to use the microscope with some type of video camera
and/or photomultiplier system. The latter seems unlikely though, as
a tube used with Zeiss' microspectrophotometer would likely have had
quartz lenses (since most of the units allowed %T measurements into
the far-UV).

So can anyone think of any reason or type of equipment that would
have a non-removable bertrand lens in it. I know there are many
analytical uses of microscopes, including microspectrophotometers,
FTIRs, etc., and it could be from any of these, or something
completely unrelated like a dedicated conoscopic microscope (if such a
thing was ever made).

The last bit of possibly helpful information I have is that I have
seen the exact same type of adjustable straight tube, but without
any lenses internal to it. But the non-lensed tube did not have the
white ring around its base. So the ring seems to indicate that the
tube has some type of special use, but that's all I know.

Also, the lenses do not seem to be coated (which seems unusual for
most post-WWII Zeiss optics I've seen).

Any and all guesses are appreciated.

Kevin 

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