When I met my friend Albert Wacker at the ITT Star Party in Carinthia in 1988, he owned a wonderful short refracting telescope , the 6-inch f/5 from Albert Jaegers,USA. I was particularly captivated by the view of the entire Cirrus Nebula and the North America Nebula through his instrument.

Years later, in 1996, I had the opportunity to acquire such a telescope from my fellow observer Uwe. These objective lenses were no longer available new, and sellers on the American used market were reluctant to ship across the Atlantic. Consequently, the only option was to purchase one through acquaintances or relatives living in the USA. That was the route by which the Jaegers objective had originally come into Uwe's possession. Eventually, his 6-inch f/5 Jaegers went up for sale, and I simply had to have it.

I built a "Dobson-style refractor" out of it. Later on, the tube was fitted with a custom-made 3.5-inch focuser to prevent vignetting caused by a focuser drawtube protruding into the light path. A toggle brake on the altitude bearing made it possible to use heavy eyepieces and swap them easily without losing the target object.

I wanted to enjoy the widest possible field of view. With a 35mm Steinheil surplus military eyepiece offering a 70° field of view, the entire Cirrus Nebula fit right in. The beautiful Double Cluster (h & χ Persei) was also a special treat; it was Albert's favorite object.

In 2005, we met up for the ITT on the Emberger Alm in Carinthia. Albert looked over at me with his Jaegers, and I looked over at him with mine—we were about 100 meters apart. I looked through Albert's telescope and saw a yellowish sky. "You've got a yellow filter in the focuser! That's why your objective has less chromatic aberration!"

But then, from a distance, I spotted something unpleasant in the optics—fungus! It had to be removed immediately.

That very afternoon, I dismantled his lens in the guest lounge of the Pension Fichtenheim. With the lens elements resting on a roll of toilet paper, I took apart and removed the lens barrel; after disassembly, I marked the edge of the lens assembly with a pencil to prevent the elements from accidentally rotating out of alignment.

Very carefully I separated the glass elements and managed to gently remove the fungus using optical cleaning fluid. After reassembly, everything was in perfect shape again, and a relieved Albert was very satisfied.

It was not until years later that Chinese-made Sky-Watcher objectives of similar dimensions became available, though unfortunately, they could not match the quality of Jaegers optics.

What did the Jaeger's advertisement say? 

"Our Lenses are unequaled"- how true!

What can be seen with a 6-inch f/5 Jaegers telescope is described in my observation report from September 2007