F15Rules

5 minutes ago, John said:

Wrong glass as well - it's a "Poodle" as Neil English would have said !

 

Yes, he didn't like Apo scopes, and later on seemed not to like refractors at all - despite having written a book about choosing and using a refractor telescope! 🥴

52 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

OK, so as the OP is refusing to give teasers out 🙂 why don’t we just for fun and whilst our scopes are cooling down have a guess at what colour it will be ?
I will suggest a classic creamy white 😁

I genuinely don't know what colour it will be, but knowing Steve, whatever it is, it will be tasteful and will look great!👍😎

Dave

9 minutes ago, John said:

If it's not a white tube with black and / or brass fittings, it's plain WRONG !!!!!

Oh dear.. - white tube, but as for the other colours..and no rings at all!!..

1 minute ago, Alan White said:

My names Steve and I am a telescopic....

I'll drink to that 😏...😁

5 minutes ago, Saganite said:

No definitely not...enough teasers for now. All will be revealed when Arcturus is fully assembled....

Aaw,  spoilsport!😂

So,  we will all want to be involved in your first AA session Steve.. (That's the Andromeda Vs Arcturus shootout, of course..😁).

Dave 

I like John's logic, and I think you could achieve a set to suit your scope, but with not too many eyepieces as follows: ( I should mention that I have the 17.5 and 9mm Morpheus units, and rate them both very highly)..

As the core of your set I'd suggest the 6.5mm, 12.5mm and 17.5mm Morpheus's. These are pretty much parfocal (ie each eyepiece can be interchanged with little or no need to re-focus).

The Morpheus's do Barlow very well, so if you get a Baader Hyperion zoom 2.25X Barlow, you would end up with the following magnifications in total in your scope:

6.5mm - 311x (with Barlow) and 138x eyepiece only

12.5mm - 162x and 72x

17.5mm - 51x and 115x

Or, in order of low to high magnification..

51x, 72x, 115x, 138x, 162x, 311x

In addition, I'd recommend a low power widefield eyepiece of between 24mm and 32mm focal length. If you want an all 1.25" barrel set (so you don't need to buy a 2" diagonal as well, you'd need to stick to c24 mm focal length. A very good eyepiece often available used for c£100 is the Explore Scientific 24mm with a wide 68degree field of view (there is one for sale on UKABS currently for £110, nothing to do with me!). This would give you a very nice 37.5x in your scope, and show you lovely views of clusters and nebulae such as M42 (the Great Nebula in Orion).

HTH and good luck with your new hobby!👍

Dave

2 hours ago, Saganite said:

it has polished up beautifully in my workshop, the problem is deciding when to stop...

Well, how about stopping now and showing us some pics??😁

Dave

Fake News!!!😂😂

Dave

3 hours ago, Alan White said:

You may or may not have seen this website article Steve,
could be of interest to others as well.

http://geoastro.co.uk/ae_refractor.htm

What a wonderful refractor Alan, thanks for sharing!

No pressure, Steve!!😂😂 (I have total faith in you my friend!)

Dave

A shot of my AE 4.5" objective cell and another of the AE mount..this sat on an extremely heavy pedestal, and was driven in RA which made a lovely, quiet ticking sound when switched on..

Dave

31 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

  At one time they had a salesman named Alistair Moon, no less!. 

..wow, what a crater name for guy who sold telescopes!!

Dave

10 minutes ago, Merlin said:

Some years ago, Jim Hysom at AE repolished a four-inch/f.12 Fraunhofer objective for me. He did an excellent job.

I wonder if Jim was involved in this scope's construction?🤔

Dave

Rob, 

It might be worth asking a local body repair garage, they are used to repairing or removing small panel dents sand often have tools for pulling them out..

Of course, if such a garage is willing to do this, make sure you remove the lens cell and focuser/rings and just give them the bare tube to work on.

Good luck,

Dave

50 minutes ago, Saganite said:

Thank you for the interest, John and David.  The tube is away being blasted back to virgin aluminium before being powder coated by the same company to whom I entrusted my TALwatcher tube....

The colour will be revealed in a follow up.

As a born and bred Bedfordian it is a little sad that I was unaware of the great telescope making just down the road, but that is how it is, or was.  I am now trying to find out as much as I can about the company.

I have realized that I have a bit of a dilemma  though , since I will have both  5" f15 and 4 1/2" f14 scopes......

Hi Steve,

That lens does look, er, edible!😊.

It's great that you saw the scope for sale and rescued it. I have no doubt that by the time you have completed the restoration, the scope will look like new. 

I'm really interested to hear how first light goes..my own AE had been nicely restored, but was never properly used by myself back in 2010 as I discovered shortly after acquiring it that I had a double hernia, and so could just not lift it properly (it was on an AE pillar and mount that must have weighed around 70-80lbs!). It went to Peak2Valley optics who I'm sure found it a good home.

At F13 and 4.5" aperture it should prove to be a lovely double star and planetary scope 👍.

Congratulations!

Dave

15 hours ago, Franklin said:

Now that's a telescope! The rotary eyepiece turret is similar to one I had on an old Unitron 75mm refractor.

Ditto! I had one, a Unihex Turret, on my Unitron Polarex 4" F15 folded refractor. It took 4x 0.965" and 1x 1.25" eyepieces. Superbly engineered.

Dave

Hi Mark,

Nice find!👍

If the scope is around the 102mm mark it could be closely related to the Vixen Pulsar model. It certainly looks big and long enough. I owned one of those several years ago.

Have a read of this old thread I posted some years ago..you can read more about the Pulsar I had and some pictures:

As to potential value, it's a difficult one, quite subjective and  dependent on condition, rarity, and of course, desirability (which can be influenced by rarity).

Some additional photos would be helpful, to see the full package, and optics condition..I'd estimate a range between £200 and £300 perhaps? But could be a bit more or less depending on other factors, mainly condition and completeness of the setup etc..

HTH😊

Dave

Lovely lunar shot there..👍

I have both 9mm and 17.5mm Morpheus, and if you like the 17.5 I think you would also really like the 9mm Morpheus...might make life a bit uncomfortable for your 10mm BCO though!!

What do you think of the 14mm Starbase ortho performance?

Dave

Lovely report Paul😊..

Your great enthusiasm ( and your friend's) shone through and provided me with a real boost after sitting under what seems like endless cloud from the North Sea for the past couple of weeks!👍

Dave

If funds allow, I'd recommend a nice holdall to store such a nice old scope in..

I bought an Oklop holdall from FLO for my Tak back in June (a gift from my grown up children for Father's Day). Really well made piece of kit.

In the past I've found that in summer, on hot humid days, those wretched tiny Thunder flies can get indoors and invade the tiniest of spaces (I had a couple get under my laptop screen a couple of years ago!).. a decent zip up holdall like the Oklop can help keep unwanted little critters at bay😊👍.

Dave

Congratulations Jeremy, lovely perfection in miniature!!

And great to see you've had the tube clamshell drilled out with plenty of holes for a plethora of handles!!

Dave

If Peter says it's good, it's good!😊👍

Dave

Thanks Steve, I do agree that scopes are made to be used first and foremost, but of course many of them are so lovely to look at as well..."droolableness" and "lickability" are also key "what counts" factors..just ask JeremyS and MikeDnight!!😂

Dave

Mike seems very quiet lately, I do hope all is well with him?🤔

Alan, thanks for resurrecting this thread, I'd missed it first time around. 

Great mounts, Vixens, all of them!👍

Dave

10 hours ago, johninderby said:

There are two versions of the T2 prism. The cheaper standard and the Zeiss prism. Not a lot of difference performance wise but the Zeiss has a few mm more aperture. 

Yep, I have the standard Baader T2 prism which has 32mm clear aperture will work well with most 1.25" eyepieces. I use it regularly on my F8 Tak and contrast is superb👍.

I also use a  very good 2" dielectric for my big 2" Axiom LX eyepieces, and both seem to offer identical performance to my eyes.

Dave

Thanks Iain..

Yes, you're right, the new tube was very nice and, as I thought at the time, made the scope look more like a "proper" refractor..

I just didn't realise then how clever (and how rare) that design was..for instance, I had no idea that the focuser was rotatable - an unusual feature in those days! Everything was just so well thought out and engineered, as was all the equipment designed and built by Nihon-Seiko in Japan at that time.

To think ( according to Dave Trott, owner of the 132c in the YouTube video) that only c50 of these scopes were ever made, is what makes me sad about what I did to the scope.. purely through my ignorance at that time.

If you watch the video, the sheer attention to detail on the mount, too, such as the threaded counterweight bar to make ultra fine balancing adjustments so easy, just weren't seen at that time.

Thankfully, people like Dave  had the foresight to recognise and preserve some of the other 49 examples...and, you could argue that my example, which I hope is still out there, is an even rarer example - being #1 of only 1 ever made!😂

Dave