Nice car boot sale find

[DeanWatson]

Bought a nice little find at the car boot on Wednesday, this Helios 114 Schmidt Newt with two rubbishy Kellners, the standard 2x Chinese Barlow, a 1.25 nosepiece/camera adapter and a number 12 yellow filter (9 quid itself brand new).  Cleaned it, collimated it, stripped the mount and put all the rusty bits into some white vinegar (really, really works...) good as gold.

 

I had the RA drive for an eq2 kicking around that also amazingly I bought at a car boot

 

Not like my dome mounted CPC1100 with ASPM 80/480 but still...

 

15 quid.  (and the drive was a tenner).

 

 

 

[BAZ]

That's a bargain. Handy to just pick up and plonk outside for a quick gander without a major set up session. 

[Bottletopburly]

Bargain 👍

[DeanWatson]

On 28/05/2023 at 08:21, BAZ said:

That's a bargain. Handy to just pick up and plonk outside for a quick gander without a major set up session. 

That was my thought, although I couldn't bear to see the poor thing languishing there.  It needed my gentle touch.  Telescope number 14.  Is that too many? I cant tell anymore... I asked my partner and her initial reaction was 'what, another one?'.  Amazed at the price.  I think its a Helios Orion (or possibly Apollo as that's the 6 inch version...) 114.  I cant seem to find much in the way of online reviews or whatnot, the closest being the Skywatcher Skyhawk (red dot finder etc) being as all these Chinese scopes are the same thing more or less.  Had a very light play with it (I really should be getting on with imaging the 101 SN) and all seems fine, especially for what was a fairly light collimation, being as it had been sat in a garage. I mean really, fifteen notes...

[+Glafnazur]

2 hours ago, DeanWatson said:

 I mean really, fifteen notes...

you did the right thing, it would have been rude not to 😄

[DeanWatson]

22 hours ago, Glafnazur said:

you did the right thing, it would have been rude not to 😄

Well, I wouldn't want to seem rude...! At the same car boot a couple of years ago I also bought a Celestron 70.  The scope isn't anything special (I mean, its alright) but the alt az mount was just the thing to stick my IOM Solarscope on the Skywatcher sun tracker thingy (cant remember the name).  It even has a nice orange accent to it.  That was twelve quid all told. In my opinion a better quality tripod and head than the one that Skywatcher do for the gti and what have you.