Top left: Cat# 146 W.F., 4 element design.  top right: The later, Cat# 176 W.F., 3-element design.  Bottom: A cornucopia of eyepieces from the AO Blue Book (late 1940's)

An AO Spencer  Eyepieces Reference

Using the various available manuals and catalogs it is possible to construct a reference of Cat #'s (Catalog Numbers) and Eyepieces that may be useful in finding eyepieces for your AO Spencer microscope.   

Looking for instructions on reticles?  Look Here. 

New!  01-21-2018:  In addition to the below, Tom Woods writes:  "I started this spreadsheet some time ago, but I worked on it for several hours today. I added more eyepiece and reticle information by scanning through reams of manuals. I thought maybe you might like to post it to your website since all the information is scattered throughout numerous manuals and User's Guides."  

Tom's spreadsheet can be downloaded here.

Eyepieces are quite forgiving can be used interchangeably on 160mm TL and Infinity corrected scopes with good results for instance, or often, between scopes of different makers.  A very practical, simple introduction to microscope eyepieces can be found here.  But don't miss reading the sections at the Olympus Resource Site and the Nikon's Microscopy Site.  

*Note: The 'purist' in me wants to note that the very best, optimum results will be obtained by using the eyepieces specifically  made for each objective set (e.g.  a Cat# 146 10x eyepiece on a 160mm TL Series 2 scope, a Cat# 176 10X eyepiece on an infinitely corrected Series 10 scope, etc.) -- but the 'practical side' of me says it really, truly doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference -- use what you have.  But if you are wondering what the differences might be between different brands of eyepieces, Mervhob of Yahoo's Microscope Group has furnished the useful information below (also see Mikrofibel page 55) :

You can see that B&L (Bausch & Lomb) eyepiece are very close to the same specifications as AO eyepieces.  It is quite common to find B&L eyepieces on AO scopes and, probably, vice-versa.  Amazingly, you'll often find B&L objectives on AO scopes, without an shims, even though their parfocal distance is 35.6mm vs. the 34mm distance for AO Objectives.

Also, in a Yahoo Microscope forum thread, Wayne Buttermore sheds some light on the different catalog numbers for some of the eyepieces at least: 

Re: AO Eyepiece 176 and 176A, interchangeable?

"As long as the 176 and 176A are used as a pair, they are interchangeable. As pointed out, the objectives from the Series 10 and Series 110 were the same design so there are no compatibility issues. Price was not a factor at the time of the change, engineering changes dictate a new catalog number for inventory control. Wayne"

OK, Here is a list of the AO and Spencer Eyepieces 'known' to me from either experience, or from the AO Spencer Literature (i.e. a catalog or a manual).  (Note: You can select the whole list, top to bottom, and past it into Excel to create a spreadsheet that can be sorted on any column if you'd like)

Sources:

Note: A 'C' at the beginning of the Cat# means 'C'oated (1950's era).  Before this, eyepieces evidently did not have coatings, after this era, all eyepieces were coated so the 'C' was dropped.

*Unlike, in the case of objectives where I only know of one case, AO liberally reused eyepiece catalog #'s 'tromping over the top of' older eyepiece #'s  -- it seems strange to have done so, but they did.

**Jim Jennings kindly notes: "It seems that the AO/Reichert Cycloptic stereo microscopes used Cat. 146 and Cat. 147 eyepieces. When these were sold as a pair, they became numbers 1146 and 1147 respectively."

***Tom Woods writes: "Mystery of 146B, 147B, and 157B eyepieces solved.  In examining a Cycloptic catalog from 1975, in the back of which AO were still listing and selling the Series 23-28 Greenough type dissecting microscopes, I found references to the "B" series of these eyepieces. Apparently these were retrofits to these older Greenough style microscopes. As you know the 146, 147, and 157 eyepieces were standard issue on the AO Series 2/4 and the Cycloptic microscopes. These eyepieces were also advertised for sale on the AO Series 10 scopes, and the Cat. 157 20X eyepieces were still being advertised for sale with the AO 110 Series scopes."

A useful manual covering installation of eyepiece reticules, "Reichert-Jung: Inserting and Calibrating Eyepiece Reticules"  for many of the above eyepieces can be found here.

Above:  Eyepieces in 1924 (left) and 1929 (right) from the Spencer Lens Catalog of those years

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The images, articles, and concepts of this page are copyrighted by P.S. Neeley -- copyright 2005