Re: Vintage Telescope Project

meade man — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:07:50 GMT

Great stuff Walkey i have lots of memories like this, sadly with no photos. But i remember my first scope a tasco 60 mm refractor. I saw a bright star with it one night ( i was about 12) when i put the scope on it, I noticed 2 tiny lines ethier side, I quickly realized it was saturn my first telescopic view. And although it was tiny with no detail, I was happy to have seen it, And filled me with wonder. When i think back to then, And a recent shot i did of saturn, How times have changed, But that memory will be just as preciouse as the high mag work, In years to come, Great story and pic walkey thanks for sharing It. Ps keep the scope wish i still had that little refractor Neil

Vintage Telescope Project

Walkey — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 05:42:47 GMT

This is my second telescope, This was back in 1979. My parents the year before had purchased a Edmund Astroscan 2001 for me as a gift. After using the telescope I had decided it would be more efficient to find thing with an EQ Mount and Setting Circles, This was back before GOTO and GPS. My dad help me convert it to work with an old used EQ Mount, on the legs we used appliance leveling legs, to aid in leveling the mount. Then I had purchased a Clock Drive Motor and Gears. Once again me and my Dad hand made the mount for the clock drive set up. The clock drive mount was some tough aluminum alloy, as we did not have a machine shop we had to cut a “L” shape out of the aluminum using an electric skill saw, it had taking us about 14 hours to make the small cuts out of the block.

I had just came across this old photo and thought I would share it.

And yes I still have the telescope, along with my Celestron Nextstar GPS 11. I find it kinda of hard to let go of the little scope these days.

Amateur telescope making

Re: Vintage Telescope Project

Vintage Telescope Project