Started with a 60mm Refractor?

"Jon Isaacs" wrote in message
...
I wonder how many of you who post and lurk here started with a 60mm
refractor
or something similar? I would like to see a show of hands, lurkers can
Email
me privately...

I was about nine when we went to Memphis TN to visit relatives. My birthday
fell in the middle of the trip and we were at my grandmother's house.
Somebody carried in a box and said it was her new ironing board.

It was a 60 mm refractor. Well, that was the outer diameter of the lens. But
the outer 3-5 mm were clouded by the cement. The tube was cardboard and the
ends were plastic. The one eyepiece had a rubber tube, and you changed
magnification by sliding the barlow (lens mounted in a rubber ring) up and
down the focusing tube. There was no finder. The alt-az mount was sheet
metal and couldn't hold it any steadier than my hands could. Months later,
the glue holding the focuser in would fail (while it was set up in the
living room) and the focuser fell to the floor, breaking several of the
plastic teeth, and making a large gap where I could no longer focus (avoided
by pulling out the cardboard drawtube.

I'd give anything to have that scope back!

The second telescope came about two years later, from the local museum. I
had been there and spotted an 8" scope made by a local ATM. I was very
excited and announced that was what I wanted for Christmas. My parents
decided to spend a little more to buy a "store-bought telescope" --- a 4.5"
Tasco reflector. The next Christmas, my present was a windup clock drive.
Only when Christmas came, I discovered my mother had hidden the present so
well, she couldn't remember where it was! It was almost Summer before she
pulled out her sewing basket and accidentally discovered the clock drive in
the basket.

I'd give anything to have that scope back as well!

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/
And the Lunar Picture of the Day http://www.lpod.org/
************************************