Finally, after all these years....

After... oh.... maybe 20 years or so, my first "good" telescope is back in
commission and finally mounted! I got the optics from good ol' Jeagers, the 6"
f/10 mirror, diagonal and 25mm kellner eyepiece (yes, that's right... f/10...
what can I say, it was cheaper than the f/8 and I was a poor young teenager).
I had the optics mounted at various times in a couple of different tubes, one
was the ubiquitous spiral wound cardboard and the other a square plywood tube,
but I never got around to ever actually mounting it on anything, so I'd use it
propped up against a bench and make do. And, even with the limitations of that
"mount", I ended up seeing quite a bit with it, but it fell into disuse
sometime during my high school years and the rest, as they say, is history.
Until last year, when I finally got it into my head to resurrect the scope. I
found the optics and prepared a makeshift tube for them, from two pieces of
concrete form tube attached together, with a nice rough, flat black interior
and nice deep blue outside. I ordered and received the requisite Ebony Star
laminate and formica pieces, a focuser... even another base for my 8x50 finder
and Telrad. We all know what happens next, right? Of course! The project
stays in that state of non-completion until a few weeks ago, when I finally
dust things off and buy my first bits of lumber. Now, as of a couple of weeks
ago, the dust has settled, the mistakenly cut lumber has been thrown away, and
I've got a dobsonian mounted 6" f/10 newtonian reflector! Though I've not gone
crazy and spent whole nights out with it, I've used it for quick looks on
various nights and a few things have occurred to me. One, the Telrad was too
awkward to use on this scope for me, so I'm using my Rigel Quickpoint which
means I had to rebalance the tube, which puts the eyepiece up even higher...
though at 6'1", I can still view even with the scope straight up. Second, the
beautiful birch plywood tube rings I made... specifically the bottom tube ring
is just a little bit too wide to swing freely through the mount. I may not
change this, though, since it does provide a "lock" of sorts for storage with
the tube straight up and dobs are hard to use right at zenith, anyway, right?
And at f/10 (i.e. with a long tube) there's not much sky that'll be missed,
anyway. May or may not ever do anything about this. We shall see. Third, a
fairly lightweight tube in the neighborhood of 5 feet long and 7" in diameter
with weights at both ends is pretty sensitive to balance.... the solution? A
couple of springs ala the previous generation of Orion dobs from the side
bearings to the sides of the rocker box. Works rather nicely. Fourth... good
quality plywood (birch in this case... red oak in a previous project), is quite
beautiful without any staining, even, with a couple good coats of poly varnish.
Fifth... SCTs really do hold collimation better than most newts do... even if
they often require a tweaking. Sixth... I'm no optical expert and haven't
really tried seriously star testing any scopes other than in the most general
terms, but the optics, even 20 years old with a few sleeks and minor marks,
seem pretty darn good. So... the beast is resurrected better than ever after
a, oh, maybe 17 or 18 year hiatus. It's not going to be my primary scope, but
it's a good one and I will use it... it's got that sentimental value, after
all, that no other scope can beat. I wonder... did anyone else out there ever
get one of these optics sets and how'd it do for you if you did? Good ol'
Jeagers... I'm sure their optics weren't magical or anything, they had their
good and bad... but don't you really miss them all the same? haha Just some
musings at the moment....

"Twipper090" wrote in message
...
After... oh.... maybe 20 years or so, my first "good" telescope is back in
commission and finally mounted! I got the optics from good ol' Jeagers,
the 6"
f/10 mirror, diagonal and 25mm kellner eyepiece (yes, that's right...
f/10...
what can I say, it was cheaper than the f/8 and I was a poor young
teenager).

No need to make excuses. In '86 I got the 6" f/10, a 1" diagonal and 7mm
Orthoscopic eyepiece from Jaegers. I'm still using it! I wanted to get a
good planet scope for a good price. That's why I got the f/10. Here's an
example of what I did with that rig last year.

http://pages.prodigy.net/macdouc/jupmacd030219.jpg

I'm quite happy with my scope.

Clear Skies,
Craig in Tampa

Craig MacDougal wrote:

"Twipper090" wrote in message
...
After... oh.... maybe 20 years or so, my first "good" telescope is back in
commission and finally mounted! I got the optics from good ol' Jeagers,
the 6"
f/10 mirror, diagonal and 25mm kellner eyepiece (yes, that's right...
f/10...
what can I say, it was cheaper than the f/8 and I was a poor young
teenager).

No need to make excuses. In '86 I got the 6" f/10, a 1" diagonal and 7mm
Orthoscopic eyepiece from Jaegers. I'm still using it! I wanted to get a
good planet scope for a good price. That's why I got the f/10. Here's an
example of what I did with that rig last year.

http://pages.prodigy.net/macdouc/jupmacd030219.jpg

I'm quite happy with my scope.

Clear Skies,
Craig in Tampa

This almost sounds like me but go back to 1977. According to the March, 1977
issue of Sky and Telescope an A. Jaegers 6" f/10 cost $32.50, while the same
mirror from Coulter Optical is $29.95. I bought the latter. An f/8 mirror cost
about $10 more which seemed like a lot when I was a teenager. From University
Optics I picked up a 40mm Kellner ($15.50) and a 8.4-21mm zoom of unspecified
design ($35.50). I thought the zoom would save compared to buying a bunch of
eyepieces but it suffers from a very narrow field.

After a long hiatus in the basement, Halley's comet is the last time I remember
using it, I pulled out the telescope earlier this year. The old Edmund
Scientific cardboard tube still has some scratches from when I used a folding
chair as a mount. I built a new dobson mount using a design from Berry's "Build
your own telescope". It is much lighter and more portable than the old pipe
fitting mount. Home Depot sold me a half sheet of oak plywood with a water
stain for $1. I put the stain on the inside of the rocker box and the mount
looks nice. I also remounted the primary using the silicon adhesive method
which replaced felt pads and clips. This made a BIG difference in the views.
Apparently the felt pads and clips introduced some astigmatism.

I'm impressed with Craig's drawing. I'm looking forward to Jupiter later this
year. I see you're using a 1" diagonal. Mine's 1.25". I wonder if that makes a
significant difference?

-Frank (in Cincinnati)

"Frank Glandorf" wrote in message
...
I see you're using a 1" diagonal. Mine's 1.25". I wonder if that makes a
significant difference?

Significant? Probably not. Would *I* be able to tell the difference after
years of looking through my set-up? Maybe, but only on nights with wonderful
seeing... and even then only maybe.

The Central Obstruction debate is one of those that never quite stops around
here. It just dies down every now and then. :-)

Clear Skies,
Craig in Tampa