Peter Drew

We were recently donated a telescope I made some 40 years ago. I made it for a textile millionaire from North Yorkshire. It is a 10" F5/F10 Newtonian with A quality optics by David Hinds. The dual focal ratio is derived by having two focusers in tandem carrying a quick change of secondary mirrors. The upper focus position has a fixed 2x Barlow providing the F10 fed via a small secondary to suit high resolution lunar and planetary observation. The lower focus position reveals a large secondary for wide field benefits. Both diagonal mirrors are mounted on pre collimated shafts and a detail when the units are interchanged ensures that each is collimated following the swap. Fine focusing is via the central knob, the platform carrying the two focus position is on spring loaded plungers. The mount is a Vixen Super Polaris which has a stiffening cage built round it ensuring adequate stability for visual use. The pier is an all aluminium fabrication. 🙂

10mm advantage over a Tal1 isn't going to be a significant upgrade as far as performance goes but, as they say, "every little helps". 🙂

Monk are not a household name in binoculars but I'm sure I've heard that they are of decent quality. The 2x zoom factor is on the sensible side of zoom ratios so the performance should be acceptable, particularly for daytime use. Most likely still have the restricted FOV characteristics of zooms. 🙂

I agree. 🙂

Wonderful capture of the event I posted earlier. I visually just caught the final stages, great to see the whole action! 🙂

Unfortunately no, I was at home using my "Luntonado". 🙂

As per title.

First thing we need to know is what type of telescope your Celestron is as this determines the best type of filter. 🙂

Bear in mind this is a Takahashi. "Something wrong" with the telescope is the least likely cause of any optical problems. 😀

Cup of warm distilled water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid stirred in. Good quality cotton wool balls. Point the telescope slightly nose down, dip a cwb into the water and then drag it over the corrector surface, repeat until the marks have gone, new cwb each pass. Finally swab off with new distilled water. 🙂

I thought you probably knew the difference but an opportunity to clarify for those who might not. Your eye adjustment comment is a good point, it does take a few moments to dial the eye in, specially for newcomers to Ha viewing. 🙂

Completely different Ha systems. The lunt has a glass based etalon, Quarks have mica chips which need to be heated to an optimum teemperature to get them "on band". I have noticed some PST's improve the performance after a few seconds of exposure. 🙂

Nice to see a "Todmorden" pier featured. 🙂

To be able to make adjustments to the secondary mirror you will first have to slightly loosen the central screw. The collimation does look to be considerably out, make adjustments gradually and carefully and you will soon have it better. 🙂

My main solar telescope is in its own observatory at the Astronomy Centre a couple of miles away so not always convenient to use. At home I usually have a PST for a quick peep to see if further effort is warranted. I also have a Lunt35 purchased mainly to see what it was like. Both scopes are quite good but nothing special. Recently, on a whim, I attached the stand alone Lunt etalon assembly to the front of the PST to check if there was any compatibility. The results have been remarkable!, jet black filaments contrasting with bright plages and prominences, tuning just the PST reveals everchanging details. This is now my favourite g & g telescope. I don't have any solar images from it as I'm purely visual but the views are very similar to the GONG colour images. 🙂

Avoid at all costs, not suitable for astronomy. 🙂

I tend to agree. Interesting coatings. 🙂

Glad you are aware to do one at a time!. I would suggest screwing the first one in just enough to locate it well, the further you screw it in the further away the next one becomes. Once all three are located just try and advance them equally. 🙂

I now have all the telescopes I've ever wished for but the most desirable was my 150mm Ha solar telescope. 🙂

I think it must be possible to remove the item with the cross detail shown in the first image in order to assemble the declination axis in the first place. If you can remove this you will be able to replace the nut and tighten up the axis again. 🙂

I agree, that's why it doesn't seem logical. Despite this, I think that companies that deal in large scale numbers of items simply can't be bothered with dealing with a request outside of their norm. ☹️

The money is in the frames for the "spec" makers. 🙂

A bit of an elephant, the colour is right too. 🙂

A photo of the mount and rings would be a great help.

I wondered where the prom had gone. I saw it around 3pm but saw it was missing when I shut the solar obs down at 6pm. 🙂