Ian McCallum

@DaveL59kindly sent me a 60mm Alt-Az mount head and OTA clamp. 👍

I was able to use the existing wooden tripod legs with it and affix the OTA into it. The space between the top of the tripod legs and the mount was slightly too big, so I added some M6 washer to pad out the gap and make it a bit more snug. 

The clamp to hold on the OTA was a bit too big for the tube, but a few layers of Velcro tape (non hooked side), certainly helped. 😉  I'm going to add a red dot finder to the OTA, as the existing finderscope is missing a crosshair eyepiece. 

This came by Royal Mail, courtesy of @DaveL59... 👍 Unfortunately, I was out on Saturday, so had to go to the local Sorting Office this morning to collect it.  It's for that second hand Prinz Astral 500, that I bought a few weeks ago.

39 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Resurrecting 12 year old thread. That's got to be some king of record 😜

Anyway, here's what I use. A Telrad on a riser.

Quite a gap between the self-adhesive tape and the OTA.😲

4 hours ago, JimB1 said:

I am always amazed at the difference a good collimation can make. 
Nice work

-Jim

The mount was tightened too much, so it barely turned.  A little slackening off of the bolt made a world of difference.

The only beneficiaries in the long run will be the lawyers!🙄 

3 hours ago, JimB1 said:

I am always amazed at the difference a good collimation can make. 
Nice work

-Jim

I had prior experience with my SW 200P Dobsonian and a Meade 114-900 EQ1B Newtonian reflector.

51 minutes ago, Joef said:

BST StarGuider 12mm. Arrived this morning, 1st purchase after buying my scope to replace the supplied 10mm eyepiece that came with it, it’s not because it was bad, it was the eye end opening, it was tiny, and wearing glasses really had a problem with seeing through it, but with the BST, I feel I could stick my whole head in it. 

Just need a patch of clear sky now to try it out. 

I've got the full range of BST's.👍

3 hours ago, Kluson said:

Glad it all worked out for you.  Our Postman is always asking me to take parcels for my neighbours which , I am happy to do. We had some torrential rain a couple of days ago and I noticed Amazon had left a large box on my neighbour's front step, It was getting soaked. I had to brave the rain to get that one. I didn't see my neighbour come home,but later saw him outside looking bewildered trying to find a parcel from Amazon. He'd obviously had the mail form them saying they had delivered it 🙂   I let him know ,I had it and we'd taken it in out of the rain. He was a happy chap as the contents were paper 🙂 Most of our delivery guys are great, but I guess they are under pressure to get everything delivered. I would imagine they will get busier as people turn away from Royal Mail after this last lot of strike action and Xmas approaches.

 

I certainly can appreciate that, as one time I worked for them as a agency driver, for a brief period.

22 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Scope's back inside. I am way beyond sick of this weather 😡

I know how you feel.🙄

Mystery solved, as a neighbour had seen the driver putting it in my bin and had left a note just inside the close door. She just gave it to me now.🙄

What's really annoying is that Yodel has been experiencing delays with deliveries, so if it had been delivered when it was supposed to be, I would have been in. 

Most couriers take a photo of the delivered item, but this wasn't done. I'm just wondering if the driver dumped it somewhere, as it wouldn't be the first time! 

5 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

Sorry to hear about this. I know this won't help recover the lost item, but what I would do, is get a lockable postbox and leave the key in the lock, telling them to unlock it, place the item inside, re-lock it then post the key in your letterbox or the post box.

This is what I have.

I live in a close with a door entry system. We've been getting some upgrade work done to the front door, but he should have been able to get in. 

Yodel was supposed to deliver the 0.965" to 1.25" adapter yesterday. I was away from just under 24hrs there, so I wasn't in. 

I sent a SMS message to the driver about where to leave it. They never replied and left it in a wheelie bin outside, a few hours later. 

I come back this afternoon and it's not in the place where it supposed to be. I've checked everywhere, so I've raised this with Yodel and the ebay seller. 

Yodel are going to investigate, but I fear it's been stolen. It's not expensive or anything, but just very annoying! 🤬

43 minutes ago, Pixies said:

A friend has just bought a similar scope. Hopefully the mirror will be clean, as it's new, but I'm ready with a few spare old EPs!

It was quite dirty and I wasn't able to get it totally clean, as you have to be so careful, etc. 

I bought this for a friend, a number of months ago. It came second hand from eBay. The primary mirror was manky and the secondary mirror was out of alignment.

I visited my friend yesterday and saw it for the first time. I removed the primary mirror and cleaned it properly, then realigned and collimated the scope with a Cheshire eyepiece I'd brought with me.

The supplied eyepieces were those awful H and SR types, so I replaced them with a new set of surplus Sky-Watcher 25mm and 10mm modified achromat eyepieces.

I also added a red dot finder to the scope too.

Upgrade and refurbishment complete. 👍

Nothing fantastic from the postie, just cheap junk from eBay, so that I can at least look through the old Prinz Astral 500 I bought last week... 🙄

I'm still waiting for a 0.965" to 1.25" adapter being delivered... 

1 hour ago, reddish75 said:

That's great thanks, Rother valley optics are confident they can source one for me, but in the meantime I've a M8 40mm bolt ready for when I set the scope up.

The end of the bolt is rounded off, so not to mar the dovetail bar too much.

59 minutes ago, reddish75 said:

Do you happen to know how long the bolt is?

5 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Hi Ian,

The scope in question didn't have a focussing mechanism as such..it had a simple push fit eyepiece of c 20-25mm fitted with crosshairs for sighting purposes. I think the fit was 0.965" (you can check that by measuring the tube diameter). If so, you could look out on ebay etc for any similar focal length eyepiece in that fit size.. all you would then be missing is the crosshairs, but you could maybe make some yourself..

Alternatively, just buy a modern 6x30 finder for the scope?

Hope that helps.

Dave

I've ordered some cheap and nasty eyepieces from eBay, but I've also waiting on a 0.965"  to 1.25" adapter. 

I've got a red dot finder that fits on the OTA. 

Has anyone a close up image of the focussing mechanism of a Prinz Astral 500 finderscope, at all please?  Mine is missing it's eyepiece, but I'm wondering if it's missing anything else?

31 minutes ago, reddish75 said:

Thanks for your help so far,

Looks like the bit that's missing is the one circled on this pic. Could anyone help with the size of screw?

8mm, as I've just measured mine.👍

I've discovered that a red dot finder that I have will fit on to the OTA, in place of the existing finderscope.

6 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

that's spot on for the width of the base segments and checking it could be 63mm on the ring part too. Almost makes me wonder if a scope like yours is what it came from tho I thought most of them were EQ mounted and this was older. Only thing with a long OTA is its a pretty narrow collar, 30mm band, so probably won't be the most stable thing esp compared to a double tube-ring setup, but would get you started till you can find something better.

Probably should take the conversation to PM to sort details, let me know whereabouts you're located and I'll have a look at what it'd be to ship and we can go from there. The head's FOC tho, its just a part sitting around here so if its useful to you I'm happy to send it on.

I've PM'ed you.👍

14 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

It may do, is a couple mm over 60. No idea what old scope that came from as it was on an older wood tripod I bought some time back to "upgrade" the handling for the LT70AZ, so I just removed this head and fitted the legs to the Celestron one, which I've also since replaced with a sturdier Y fork type. The celestron won't help you tho as the OTA would need bolts in the sides as well as being a wider tube.

Your finder probably used one of the eyepieces that the scope does, I assume that's a 0.965mm opening/barrel? The one that came attached to my vintage 3-inch the finder has a fixed eyepiece, not managed to dismantle that tho but other 'projects' came along soon after and now back working so even less time.

The wooden tripod legs that came with it have an distance of around 27.5mm on the inside, so should be able to take that head.  Do you think it's still doable? If so, I can certainly pay the postage and anything else...

Yes, it's a 0.965" diameter focus tube.  I've got an adapter coming from eBay to convert my 1.25" eyepieces down to 0.965".

The finderscope is missing an eyepiece, is that easy to fix? 🤔 Also the prism seems to have another lens screwed on to the front of it. Is that an erecting prism? 🤔