Push it to the limit! (My refractor, that is)

[SkyMush]

Good evening one, and good evening all.

I'm a long, long, long-time lurker on these boards, and decided to creep out of the woodwork and ask for some assistance. After years spent looking upwards, I managed to bag myself a telescope at an auction for £15. I know, at that price it can't be good, but I told myself that I'd try it and see if astronomy caught my interest. It has.

Now, for the last few months I've been getting ready to buy a Skywatcher Skyliner 200p Dob, after reading all the rave reviews. However, there's a possibility I might be going overseas in September, not to see the scope for a year. And, seeing as the scope is unlikely to arrive for several months, that got me thinking that maaaybe I could hold off on buying one for now. In the meantime, I thought, I could spend a little bit of money on pushing my £15 scope to its limits, and squeezing every last drop of enjoyment out of it, before it retires.

My scope is a retro Tasco 9F (D:60mm F:800m) with a horrid Huygens 23mm eyepiece, and a rather unstable tripod. It's not a great scope, but it took my breath away when I saw Jupiter and its moons, had me giddy when I was gazing at the Pleiades, and feeling somewhat proud when I separated a few doubles. I battled with it through heavy winds at 4am to FINALLY see Saturn and its rings, and sat keeping it company with my copy of Turn Left at Orion waiting for a break in the clouds. Equally, it has frustrated me massively by not yielding such simple delights as Andromeda, however such frustration means I've taken time to learn the sky, and revelled in seeing objects which others take for granted.

So, I come to you and ask for your help in pushing this little scope to its limits. Ideally I want to buy things (such as eyepieces, or a light-pollution filter) which I can transfer to my 200p when I get it down the line. Equally, if anybody can speak of past experience with this scope, or similar, I'd LOVE to hear your tales.

My thanks in advance, and most of all (I think this is how you do it round these parts), clear skies!

(EDIT: Silly me, I never bothered to check before, but it seems the thing is using .965" eyepieces. Rubbish! I guess this turns the discussion around to what I can EXPECT of this scope, and how better to use it.)

[rowan46]

welcome to sgl I assume that as it's an old scope it has the old .965 inch eyepieces so you are going to need an adaptor as good eyepieces for those barrels are hard to come by and modern ones anyway are 1 1/4" or 2" the skyliner comes with a 25mm and a 10mm the 25mm is quite usable and you don't want to go much wider with a .965 barrel maybe a decent eyepiece around the 15-20mm range might be useful you certainly don't need to push the mag up too high with that scope. To be honest I've only looked through a tasco when I was a kid it was a mates and I remember being highly impressed with it I doubt I would be now though but it was terribly glamorous in those days to own a telescope.

[Astro Imp]

Earlier this evening I was browsing Astro Boot and saw a 1.25" to .965" adaptor. Might be just what you are looking for.

[Capricorn]

I would suggest 3 plossl eyepieces, but if the scope is 0.965 then you would really need a converter as well. Get that lot and the expense is getting on.

A 10mm, 15mm and a 32mm plossl would seem reasonable. Giving 80x, 53x and 25x.

As to the mount, not so easy as a scope mount tends to be reasonably substantial, especially if you include the weights. Other option is a reasonable camera tripod and whatever to connect the 2.

[Stu]

The adaptor on Astroboot is the wrong way, you need one of these. There is a cheap or better quality option depending on how much you want to spend. I use one of the second type in a 60mm Carton scope and it works well

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/star-diagonal,northstar/economy/hydridresin.html

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/hybrid%20star%20diagonal/24.5mm.html

Stu