[ticl2184]

I've owned a pair of 10x42 swarovision for about 18 months.
I initially noticed this mark about 7 months ago. Since that time is has quadrupled in size and is definitely spreading.

I have attached 2 images. In my opinion it looks like some sort of microbe growing on the coatings, like mold on a agar plate !
Does any one know what it is ?

The mark is in the left hand monocular. It appears to be on the surface of the second or third objective lense.
The binoculars have not been dropped, submerged or exposed to extremes of temperature.

Any views would be welcome, particularly from Swarovski Optik. I don't really want to go to the time and expense of sending them back if nothing can be done.
P.S. Would a blast of UV from the Sun destroy what ever is growing ?

Thanks Tim

[NDhunter]

That does not look normal by any means, if it is on an internal lens surface.
I would send them in for service.

Jerry

[brocknroller]

Originally Posted by ticl2184

I've owned a pair of 10x42 swarovision for about 18 months.
I initially noticed this mark about 7 months ago. Since that time is has quadrupled in size and is definitely spreading.

I have attached 2 images. In my opinion it looks like some sort of microbe growing on the coatings, like mold on a agar plate !
Does any one know what it is ?

The mark is in the left hand monocular. It appears to be on the surface of the second or third objective lense.
The binoculars have not been dropped, submerged or exposed to extremes of temperature.

Any views would be welcome, particularly from Swarovski Optik. I don't really want to go to the time and expense of sending them back if nothing can be done.
P.S. Would a blast of UV from the Sun destroy what ever is growing ?

Thanks Tim

Looks like you've got fungus!

Here's a description posted on europa.com:

Fungus in optical instruments

"Fungus does not look like haze but has an appearance like hairs or tendrils branching from a center. While the fungus can be removed by cleaning, it frequently has etched the glass, since fungi secrete enzymes and acids to chemically alter their environment so they can absorb nutrients. This etching requires repolishing, which if done unprofessionally will ruin the instrument. It is not possible to tell if the glass is etched until the fungus is cleaned. Maintenance of optical instruments involves prevention of future fungus problems, especially if located in damp regions."

The post was about old non-WP optical instruments. Your EL should be sealed and WP so fungus should have no way to get in and no water source.

Even if the fungus has etched marks into the lens, Swaro should replace the lens since the fungus got in because of a defect in the sealing of the binoculars. You should send the bins to Swaro for repolishing or replacement.

Here's the post I quoted:

http://www.europa.com/~telscope/fungus.txt

Brock

[gw4aurora]

Tom, I would send them to Swaro to be sorted.
6 months ago I sent my 2003 10x42 EL in for repair and had them back in 3 weeks.

Chris.

[Kammerdiner]

Yes, definitely send it to Swaro. If it's growing it must have moisture (and oxygen?? does fungus need O2??) which means the seal is no good.

Swaro would WANT to see this in order to figure out what went wrong.

Mark

[brocknroller]

Originally Posted by Kammerdiner

Yes, definitely send it to Swaro. If it's growing it must have moisture (and oxygen?? does fungus need O2??) which means the seal is no good.

Swaro would WANT to see this in order to figure out what went wrong.

Mark

Yes, fungi are not anaerobic like Kate Moss. Oh, wait, that's anorexic.

"Mold needs water to grow; without water mold cannot grow. Mold also needs food, oxygen and a temperature between 40 degrees and 100 degrees F..."

http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings...s/db/35013.pdf

But what "food" could there be inside an EL? Tasty Swarodur coatings? Or is the food source wafting in along with the moisture and O2?

Definitely a leaky seal. Hopefully an isolated incident and not a harbinger of things to come for other SV EL owners.

Brock

[Antoine_53]

I have the same problem...

[james holdsworth]

Wasn't it jgraider that was adamant that Swarovski had sealing / fogging issues?

[Kammerdiner]

Hmm, looks like Swaro may have a problem here. Bad seals are one thing, but those mold spores must have been built in, and evidently it doesn't take much to get them growing.

Antoine, is yours also a 10x?

So far so good for my 8.5 SV, but I'll be keeping an eye (and a flashlight) on it.

Mark

[Antoine_53]

Yes I've a 10x42..

I've got those binoculars for 1 year, and I saw this mark last week..

I'm going to my retailer on saturday to know if I have to send them back to Swarovski...

[henry link]

Maybe fungus, but not completely certain. Other possibilities are failure of the cement between cemented elements or some flaw in the coating. In the left image below I enhanced the contrast of Antoine's first photo. The pattern looks like a splatter to me. The middle photo is some genuine fungus, which has been growing for many years on an old binocular someone gave me. The right photo is a partially delaminated cemented doublet. It will be interesting to see what these odd patterns in the SV's turn out to be. I wouldn't be too hasty to assume they're fungus.

[Kammerdiner]

Excellent points, Henry. It will be interesting to see what it turns out to be.

Given the location--pretty much inaccessible--fungus may indeed be the long-shot hypothesis.

Mark

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by Kammerdiner

Excellent points, Henry. It will be interesting to see what it turns out to be.

Given the location--pretty much inaccessible--fungus may indeed be the long-shot hypothesis.

Mark

There's a fungus amungus? Just another reason to get a Zeiss. HaHa! Glad I unloaded my Swarovision's before it started growing. Everybody with a Swarovision better get your binoculars a culture test. Swab them for mold. What else could it be if it is increasing in size? Now's the time to buy a Swarovision you can get one cheap.

[ticl2184]

Many thanks for all your replies and advice.
Swarovski have been in contact and are very eager to sort the problem out. Will even supply spare pair of bins during repair. Excellent customer service.

Still a bit cheesed off that at this price and level there are any problems whatso ever with them.
Also hope that they don't adjust the collimation or field stops during the repair. Took me ages to find a pair that had parallel edge of field levels.

Tim.

[brocknroller]

A few years ago I removed fungus from the objective lens of 6" f/15 brass refractor, which was made in the 1930s.

The Penn State Astronomy Club was given the telescope and the dome (which originally housed a solar telescope). My club got together with the student club, bought some paint and sealer and plugged some leaks in the dome and painted the rusted inside of the dome.

We did 3/4 of the job and then our club president suggested now that the students know what to do, we let them finish the rest.

Well, students come and go and the dome is off campus and not all students have cars so it never got finished.

A couple years later, I was using the scope to observe Mars at opposition and was startled to see Lowell's canals on the planet!

Skeptical that I was seeing the famous dust storm phenomena through a 6" scope, I started looking for some marks on the EPs, diagonal, and objective.

The Brandon EPs checked out okay, but the mirror in the diagonal had so many cracks, it looked like the surface of Europa.

I had my ST 80 piggybacked on the long refractor so I could take some astrophotos. I put my Orion diagonal on the main scope.

Still saw the canali! So I got my flashlight, took off the red cellophane and peeped down the tube through the objective. Lo and behold, the canali were on the objectives!

The tendrils looked similar to what appears on Tim's objectives, but many, many more of them like an octopus's tendrils spread over the 6" lens.

I went back the next day with some ROR residual oil remover, which is the best solution I've found for removing hard to remove stains from optics that won't remove the AR coatings (not that I could see any AR coatings, it was made in the 1930s).

Took some elbow grease but I got most of it off and then put the lens carefully back in the same orientation I took it off (marked the bottom lens) and I was back in business. No canali on Mars, in fact, not much of anything that night except for one feature, Syrtis Major, which looked like a big blog of black mold on Mars.

Well, whatever the issue is with these Swarovisions, I hope they are isolated failures and not common problems beginning to crop up, not only for the SV EL owners sake, but also so Dennis doesn't get to gloat!

Brock

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by ticl2184

Many thanks for all your replies and advice.
Swarovski have been in contact and are very eager to sort the problem out. Will even supply spare pair of bins during repair. Excellent customer service.

Still a bit cheesed off that at this price and level there are any problems whatso ever with them.
Also hope that they don't adjust the collimation or field stops during the repair. Took me ages to find a pair that had parallel edge of field levels.

Tim.

Make sure you let us know what the problem turned out to be. It should be very interesting. Especially since yours is not the only isolated case. They might just give you a new pair. I know what you mean about the collimation and field stops. Good luck.

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by ticl2184

Many thanks for all your replies and advice.
Swarovski have been in contact and are very eager to sort the problem out. Will even supply spare pair of bins during repair. Excellent customer service.

Still a bit cheesed off that at this price and level there are any problems whatso ever with them.
Also hope that they don't adjust the collimation or field stops during the repair. Took me ages to find a pair that had parallel edge of field levels.

Tim.

To kill the fungus, many people recommend bathing the lenses in UV light. Either leave in bright sunlight for many days, or purchase a cheap UV lamp and blast them for a couple of hours Also store in low relative humidity storage. Worth a try.

[etudiant]

Originally Posted by denco@comcast.n

To kill the fungus, many people recommend bathing the lenses in UV light. Either leave in bright sunlight for many days, or purchase a cheap UV lamp and blast them for a couple of hours Also store in low relative humidity storage. Worth a try.

This may work by heat rather than by UV.
Afaik, glass absorbs UV light pretty well, so I'd be surprised if the fungus behind the lenses got a killing dose.

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by etudiant

This may work by heat rather than by UV.
Afaik, glass absorbs UV light pretty well, so I'd be surprised if the fungus behind the lenses got a killing dose.

Heat might work too but you would have to be careful you didn't overdo it or you could do some damage. I wouldn't put them in the oven or you would have some baked Swarovision's! Probably wouldn't be very tender and would be an expensive meal.

[Perry Grin]

Originally Posted by ticl2184

Took me ages to find a pair that had parallel edge of field levels.

Tim.

Hi Tim,

What do you mean by this and what did you look for to pick out a good example?

Perry

[ceasar]

Originally Posted by denco@comcast.n

............................. I know what you mean about the collimation and field stops. Good luck.

How do you test for this if you purchase from e-bay?

Bob

[ticl2184]

Hi Perry

Basically although the binoculars are collimated the field stops are slightly out. This causes the image on one side to show more of a object at the very top of the FOV, compared to the opposite monocular. Have a look at Henry Links post 11th Feb 2010.
I eventually found a pair which was just right for me however it does seem majority of swarovision's have this anomaly.
Hope this helps

Tim

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by ticl2184

Hi Perry

Basically although the binoculars are collimated the field stops are slightly out. This causes the image on one side to show more of a object at the very top of the FOV, compared to the opposite monocular. Have a look at Henry Links post 11th Feb 2010.
I eventually found a pair which was just right for me however it does seem majority of swarovision's have this anomaly.
Hope this helps

Tim

Everyone I looked through had it including mine. You were lucky to find a pair that suited you.

[denco@comcast.n]

Originally Posted by brocknroller

Yes, fungi are not anaerobic like Kate Moss. Oh, wait, that's anorexic.

"Mold needs water to grow; without water mold cannot grow. Mold also needs food, oxygen and a temperature between 40 degrees and 100 degrees F..."

http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings...s/db/35013.pdf

But what "food" could there be inside an EL? Tasty Swarodur coatings? Or is the food source wafting in along with the moisture and O2?

Definitely a leaky seal. Hopefully an isolated incident and not a harbinger of things to come for other SV EL owners.

Brock

Molds are aerobic but Fungi are mostly aerobic or facultatively anaerobic organisms. Facultatively anaerobic means that some molds can survive without air. There are new species of fungus that are totally anaerobic so it would be my guess that whatever is growing inside these binoculars is a fungus. It could have gotten inside the binoculars during assembly and decided to sprout roots all over the optics. UGHHH!

[lilcrazy2]

Originally Posted by denco@comcast.n

Everyone I looked through had it including mine. You were lucky to find a pair that suited you.

Funny you have never mentioned this before someone else brings it up! And I'm sure you looked thru many, many pairs before deciding on your less than perfect pair.

Guess those Aliens aren't quite the master craftsmen you led us all to believe.

All this idle speculation and home brewed remedies is really a hoot. Who in their right mind would buy a pair of $2000 binos and subject them to these Martha Stewart remedies, as opposed to just sending them in to SONA to see what the deal is?

Tom