Thoughts on getting or having a Telescope.
 

A friend of mine recently gave me an old 1950's Telescope. It is a Criterion DynaScope made in Hartford Connecticut. It has a 4 inch ( 101.6 ) mm aperture and is 46.5 inches ( 1181.1 ) mm long. It is missing the eye piece and also the front lense. It it a reflector style Newtonian Telescope. The Mirror in the back portion looks to be in excellent shape. It came with a heavy steel tripod setup with wooden legs. I was curious if this Telescope can be improved and modified since I will be purchasing other components for it.

• https://www.cloudynights.com/uploads...1549_thumb.jpg

I have seen video's on youtube where people have gotten Telescope tubes made of Carbon Fiber, Fiberglass and even PVC pipe and made their own Telescopes.

With the thread " NASA "pokes" Voyager 1 spacecraft and got a response! in " started by Subsim member Platapus, I wondered if anyone else has experience with Telescopes and if so, any thoughts on them.

I've had a couple of cheap telescopes. To look at mountaintops and other earthbound stationary objects they worked well enough but for looking at the moon and planets though they were pretty much useless. It took ages to get everything in focus and adjusted only to watch the moon drift right past.



I'd like one of those computer controlled jobs that automatically track the object as it moves though the sky as I imagine it would be much less frustrating.

I saw some story recently about a camera lens that's a bit older, but it was actually better than most telescopes. Having trouble finding the story though.

Newtonian’s have been around for a looong long time, they’re great scopes. It’s such a simple reflector design, other than maintenance and repair I can’t think of much that can be done to improve them imo. You should have fun nights with that one.

By “front lens” do you mean the secondary mirror, stalk and the spider vanes?



Here’s my stuff I put on a celestron AVX go to mount.
https://i.ibb.co/4WSWtm3/image.jpg

Your understanding of Telescopes is much better than mine, I'm sure. All of the above is missing in the front, Rockstar. The entire assembly. I saw a video that I saved on another computer that explains in depth How to make sure all the components all work together, including the eye piece magnification for the best possible views.


I seem to recall Subsim member Rockin' Robbins used computers with his telescope setups. He mentioned he got great views of the Planets and such. I am less than a novice when it comes down to Telescopes but with warm summer night fast approaching......



Btw Rockstar, that's a great looking rig you have. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:
Thanks for the input, Guys. :Kaleun_Salute: :yep:

Only other thing I can think to get would be a moon filter. It’s pretty bright you’ll get a headache and be seeing spots all night without one. :D

Even I have now and then been thinking of buying a decent telescope-But such a device cost multi. I'm fascinated by the planets.

I had a dream to buy one where I could see Jupiter clearly.

Markus

Doesn’t have to be expensive it’s fun looking around just with a decent set of binoculars too No telescope or binoculars? Take a star chart with you on a clear night and learn to identify what you see, chicks dig it :03:. Though with so much light pollution it’s hard to find dark skies.

There's not so much light pollution where I live.
We are only 300 or so living in our neighbourhood(around 6000 total on our island)

Markus

Only ever had a kids telescope at a young age but about thirty years ago whilst on holiday in Andorra the wife purchased me a pair of Carton zoom 10x-30x50 binoculars and they are fine for looking at shipping off our local coastline.

My toy telescope "box" made an excellent Graf Spee once it went to the ship fitters for a Lego superstructure & turrets. :D I played hooky to see that movie, or was that "Sink the Bismarck" I don't remember? Maybe both.

FIXED!
 

:Kaleun_Binocular::yeah::arrgh!:

I guess it would depend on how much this telescope is selling for and how much it would cost you to replace the missing parts.

Seems to recall an issue in an episode of the Universe where some astronomers had paid rent for a days use of a large telescope in..was it Chile ?

Secondly what does a decent telescope cost ?

Found this page

https://optcorp.com/blogs/customer-h...telescope-cost

Markus

My first telescope was a Celestron Travel Scope 80. At the time, it cost me $120 ($140 now) and it comes with a backpack so you can take it anywhere. I listened to the common wisdom that your first scope should be easy to set up and lightweight, and I'm glad I did. I was able to get some amazing views after only a few minutes of setup time. I also bought a sturdier tripod, a couple of Barlow lenses and a four-pack of filters for a total of about $415.*

With that setup (and a mount for my phone at about $30) I was able to record these videos:




https://youtu.be/aSpYr7mgqes


https://youtu.be/mx0Mkw-Zymg


I had noticed a defect in the telescope when trying to view the planets. After a brief inspection, I found that the objective lens wasn't properly seated. This was easily fixed by loosening the lock ring, resetting the lens and then re-tightening the lock ring. After doing that, I was able to record this video while simply holding my phone up to the eyepiece:


https://youtu.be/tubReBqj6Yo


Meanwhile, I had my eye on the Celestron Omni XLT 120. (I like refractors because they're simple.) But it was back ordered for a few years. As luck would have it, when it was finally available I happened to have the funds on hand. So, I bought it. And I love it.


(Guitar for scale.)

https://i.imgur.com/qP1dN9kh.jpg


Set up takes considerably longer - given the German equitorial mount and the sheer size of it. But the increase in resolution is totally worth it.

I'm almost embarrassed to post the following video. I recorded it with the same Samsung Galaxy S20 FE held to the eyepiece of the Omni XLT 120 by hand. But the phone's camera is out of focus. The actual view was stable and absolutely stunning.


https://youtu.be/9JkKK9xGyjY


One day I will get a proper imaging setup. Either a better mount for my phone (which has excellent imaging sensors) or a dedicated telescope imaging sensor. Then, I will be able to provide much better examples of what I am seeing.


Cheers!
Sean C.






*
Celestron Travel Scope 80: $119.95
(Includes 20mm and 10mm eyepieces and star diagonal.)
https://www.celestron.com/products/t...tphone-adapter

Celestron Heavy Duty Azimuth Tripod: $99.95
(Original tripod was too flimsy and had no slow motion controls.)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Omni 2X Barlow Lens - 1.25": $57.95
https://www.celestron.com/products/o...low-lens-125in

X-Cel LX 3X Barlow Lens - 1.25": $92.74
https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-934...364/ref=sr_1_1

Lunar and Planetary Filter Set - 1.25": $44.95
https://www.celestron.com/products/l...lter-set-125in

Total: $415.54 + tax/s&h

Minimum for Moon images: $212.69

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you to everyone for the insight and helpful suggestions regarding Telescopes. I appreciate everyone taking the time out to help a novice at Astronomy. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:The suggestions from Rockstar, Sean C and Otto Harkman, although his post disappeared, were especially helpful.
Sean C @ I noticed you had to get your Guitar in the picture. Rock on. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

I know it's not very realistic but I would like to get out as far as Neptune. I'm sure it's far more realistic to maybe be able to see Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Venus. I would be thrilled with that. Mercury is difficult to view as it's always low on the horizon and hard to pick out. Betelgeuse, Antares, the Galaxy of Andromeda and Pleiades ( the 7 Sisters ) are also pretty realistic, in terms of viewing, with a decent Telescope.

In College, There were two gentlemen who had been with NASA and I believe the JPL laboratories. They were teaching course in Astronomy and Astro - Physics. I wanted to take a few courses with them but was carrying 5 classes ( 15 credits ) I had to get special permission from the Dean of Students to carry 15 credits. I had absolutely no time to spare as those classes were outside my discipline and would have been a luxury. When not studying, going to classes or working, I spent the precious few hours I had sleeping.

I will always regret not having been able to take their classes as they were highly acclaimed and the students who took their classes and studied with them raved about how great they were as teachers and professors.


Thanks again, everyone. :Kaleun_Salute:

If money isn't an issue then you have these two Telescope.

https://optcorp.com/products/tpo-10-...-ota-telescope

https://optcorp.com/collections/prof...-25-edgehd-ota

These Telescope is taken from a homepage I linked to on page 1.

They are for professionel amateurs.

Markus

Thanks Markus, for the links. There really are so many choices, It's hard to decide. :k_confused:There are reflector and refractory types of Scopes and each type have their attributes. And, that's just the beginning. Still, the input I got here gives me a good starting point.

I will say this, I wanted to be a purist and discover the universe on my own like ol’ grand pappy used to do. So I purchased a manually geared German Equatorial Mount. Well it didn’t take long for me to figure out that wasn’t a lot of fun. Computerized GEM goto mounts are the way to go. Just have to polar align the scope then tell it what to point too and it slews to target all by itself, saves time :)

Fast 6 or 8 inch newtonian reflectors are easy to manage and let a lot of light in, known as “light buckets”. IMO they make great scopes for visual astronomy and do very well in the astrophotography department if you decide later to go that route.

What I like about motorized mounts it they continue to track the object. It's frustrating to spend all that time to manually point and focus a telescope on an object only to watch it roll past and out of view.