Nightspore Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Exactly two years and one day ago I had the now infamous ‘Double ST80 Grub Failure’ event. I never talk about it though. Well, if you really want to know two years ago on my annual ST80 Club outing I had the entire focuser detach from the OTA on two separate ST80 OTA’s in one night! The moral of this tale is to keep an eye on the grub screws on GSO aftermarket rotating focusers. They have to be slightly loose so the focuser can rotate, but too loose and we’re at the accidental jettison stage. Not recommended for conducive observing. So, what’s the ‘StarTravel’ ST80 Club outing I hear you say? In a galaxy far away, well actually Taiwan and Canada, a company called Sky-Watcher manufactured (at Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co. Ltd) an f/5, portable 80mm doublet achromat that had negligible CA. These doublets were sold under a plethora of brands, including Sky-Watcher, Orion, Omegon and others. It doesn’t seem so surprising or unique today, but back in the day, a decent f/5 affordable achromat was considered almost like faking the Moon landings or something. It was, and still is, a truly remarkable, and more importantly, an affordable achromatic doublet. Let alone with a focal ratio as fast as f/5 (shock, horror!). Unfortunately the OTA had a rather fundamental focuser. It didn’t rotate, had no fine focus ability and the grease used in the mechanism itself resembled the blob in the movie; The Blob. Luckily those clever chaps at Guan Sheng Optical (GSO) realised there was a bit of a gap in this market. They designed a shed load of aftermarket Crayford based focusers specifically to fit the ST80. As these were reasonably priced, and literally a bolt-on solution, the GSO/Synta ST80 achromat combination modification became a bit of a cult around the world. Over the years I’ve known quite a few people on astro forums around the world who use these hybrid little scopes. A few of us (predominantly visual) would take these ST80’s out and report on any observations we made with them. Probably a bit like anorak classic car enthusiasts or similar. When I’m outside with the ST80 I’m transported back in time to when I was a young boy with my little Tasco achromat. Having said that, the ST80 taught me a lot about acquiring and using a fast doublet on a reliable and workable alt-az mount and tripod. On forums like these, which are predominantly aimed at astrophotography, the humble but venerable ST80 is now only considered as a guide scope. To many visual observers however we look back with sentiment, nostalgia and affection. At about 02:30 GMT on Tuesday the 9th of January I took my modified Orion ST80 out. I’m assuming that was the time. My Swiss Railways watch has gone off the rails. It’s basically a train-wreck now. I’m guessing the battery is dead. Unless this is an X-Files missing time episode. Either that or evil faeries maybe. I’m going with the flat battery explanation. There was no Moon and the seeing was above average. There were occasional clouds drifting from the north though. So not perfect. I chose the ST80 as it was the fastest scope I owned under four inches in aperture. Ideal for the targets I had in mind and lightweight enough for me to lug about in my enervated state. The 30mm, 2” GSO SuperView was placed in the mirror diagonal giving me 13.3x. The first target was Arcturus (literally 'watching the bear'). Alpha Bootes is 36.7 light years distant, so I’m seeing it as it was in early 1987 (I think REM released the Document album and Acid House was just developing). It was a good target (Arcturus, not Acid House) to use to focus the 30mm SuperView. Next target was Coma Berenices. There was intermittent cloud, of course. Berenice’s Hair was very nice, definitely not needing a perm. The Beehive Cluster was less easy to find for some reason. Eventually, the clouds cleared a while, I could see M44 with the naked eye, which made sighting with the scope a lot easier. The bees looked fine. I split Castor fairly easily with an Orion zoom at 57x. After looking at a few starfields in the north I got a butcher’s hook at M37 in Auriga. I gave the 15mm SuperView a whirl at 27x but the clouds came back with a vengeance. All in all, a decent annual outing for the ST80 Club (with no disasters). Plus it was warmer than this time two years ago. Hurrah for global warming (maybe)! One size fits all! +seven_legs, +Streetbob and +Glafnazur 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+RonC Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Sorry to say I use a ST80 as a guide scope.....👍 Nightspore and +Ibbo 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 34 minutes ago, RonC said: Sorry to say I use a ST80 as a guide scope.....👍 I should imagine it makes a good guide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+RonC Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 3 hours ago, Nightspore said: I should imagine it makes a good guide. Pretty good yes! Nightspore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Nice report. Regarding the 'Beehive' M44. I can't see it from here in 'light pollution central' But i always draw an imaginary line between Regulas in Leo and Pollux in Gemini. Pretty much half way along that imaginary line is the beehive. I don't think theres much else to see in Cancer is there ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 41 minutes ago, Bino-viewer said: Nice report. Regarding the 'Beehive' M44. I can't see it from here in 'light pollution central' But i always draw an imaginary line between Regulas in Leo and Pollux in Gemini. Pretty much half way along that imaginary line is the beehive. I don't think theres much else to see in Cancer is there ?? Thanks Rob. I just can't actually see a crab! Those Ancient Sumerians had some imagination. At least the Leo constellation vaguely resembles a heraldic stattant lion lol. +Bino-viewer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fellas on Google Plus Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Great report! Happy to know you had a successful outing, Dave. Detaching focusers - what a nightmare! And two at that! Let's hope that night is lo-o-o-ng behind you, lol! Meantime, I caught a double shadow transit on Jupiter while the GRS was visible! I was playing with cloud the whole time trying to capture enough data for a good image. I'm trying to find a way to post it directly here without having to link a file. Nightspore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 2 hours ago, The Fellas on Google Plus said: Great report! Happy to know you had a successful outing, Dave. Detaching focusers - what a nightmare! And two at that! Let's hope that night is lo-o-o-ng behind you, lol! Meantime, I caught a double shadow transit on Jupiter while the GRS was visible! I was playing with cloud the whole time trying to capture enough data for a good image. I'm trying to find a way to post it directly here without having to link a file. Yeah, thanks Reggie,first this year. I have written about this. I'm not sure if you can upload pictures directly. I use Imgur. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Streetbob Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 An entertaining report. Glad it was successful. Here’s to many more this year. Nightspore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 47 minutes ago, Streetbob said: An entertaining report. Glad it was successful. Here’s to many more this year. Cheers Doug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stu Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I got my dad an ST80 for his birthday last year. He loves it, nice little lightweight scope for stars and birds. Nightspore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 3 hours ago, Stu said: I got my dad an ST80 for his birthday last year. He loves it, nice little lightweight scope for stars and birds. I have better small refractors, but nothing quite as fast as f/5. I learned a lot of the sky with an ST80 and it really did teach me about alt-az mounts. Predominantly what was wrong with the AZ5! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now