New (old) scope "Can ya tell what it is yet"

[BAZ]

It beats decorating!

[philjay]

Heres the scope almost complete now, respendant with 2" focuser (thanks Mick) and SW rings (thanks Sheila) on the pier with HEQ5 mount. I have fitted a SW motofocuser to the focuser and jobs a good un.

 

I collimated it roughly this afternoon and managed to test it tonight, works well but needs more attention on the collimation though, lunar and Jupiter were spot on even with teh collimation slightly off as shown by slightly off star discs

 

This is going to be my planetary imaging scope and will not reside on this mopunt much except to test and play. The scope is really at the limit of the HEQ5 and is a bit wobbly but itll be used mainly on my observatory CGE mount so that should steady it up a bit.

 

 

[Daz Type-R]

That is a beauty.

[Brantuk]

Lovely job Phil - look smashing

[philjay]

It looks alot better now Ive taken the wonky Orion sticker off the side of the tube

[catman161]

Great work Phil

[Doc]

It looks awesome Phil, once collimated it will be a terrific planetary scope.

[+Ibbo]

that should work very well for planetary

 

looks very nice

[BAZ]

Looks gorgeous Phil.

Clear skies mate.

[Orion]

There is no hope for me I am a classic scope aholic. I was at the auctions the other day and these 2 boxes were there and I wasnt going to bid but I had been out bid on 7 out of 8 items that the wife had asked me to bid on for her business and I went for it. I bid a little more than I wanted to but it was worth it.

So here are the 1st tantalising photos of the boxes one for the mount the other for the scope

Any guesses as to what mightpiece of lovely old astro stuff may be lurking inside?

Heres a clue, its British and late 80s to mid 1990s ish sort of like

As you like classic scopes, would a 1982 8.75" Fullerscope with a David Hinds mirror come into that category? The mirror is still shiny with no tarnish. I know some people say to get the mirror aluminised every 5 or 10 years, but this one still seems as shiny as it was new.  I suppose microscopically, there may be some tarnish/oxidation that might scatter the light and result in less light going back to the flat, but I wouldn't know if that was happening. Perhaps a test would be to see if I could still split a close double star that could be done in 1982. It was one of the two bright stars in Gemini that I looked at. For months, it always looked like a single star, then on one night, the seeing must have been so good, I could resolve the star into two silvery balls with a tiny black line space between them. I was really pleased because I knew the optics were ok.  

[philjay]

That takes me back derek, my mate had one of those at exactly that time period, we housed it and my scope in our 1st observatory we built in his mums back yard. Yep it certainly is a classic, the optics were superb, i remember the views of mars at oppossition in the late 70s, extremely good, even with todays optics it would give a lot of scopes a run for their money

Provided the coatings arent milky white they should give reasonable views. This mirror set had oxidised badly with small white flecks and planetary views were washed out so it needed recoating.

Itd be nice to see the scope at a meet sometime derek, you should bring it along