"Classic" combo - (will only appeal to long focus geeks...)

[A McEwan]

Hi all,

I just came in from a half-hour session with my 1964 Swift 839 60mm f13.5 achromat. It's mounted on a modified AZ-3 for ease of use and "swift" set up (groan) straight from the shed.

Anyway, Jupiter was up high and so were the Pleiades, and as I have recently acquired an Edmund 28mm RKE eyepiece I thought I'd give it an airing on the cluster to see how it fared as a low power wide-ish field (comparatively!) combination with the Swift.

I found some shade from the streetlight and found the Pleiades in my finderscope (lovely and sharp as always). Plopped the 28mm RKE in and focused.

The view was filled with the whole cluster - it just fit in the eyepiece, and each and every star was a perfect pinpoint of light perfectly focused across the entire field of view. A more perfect match, size-wise, could not have been made for this scope. What really blew me away though, was that the cluster, being viewed through a 48 year old 60mm aperture scope, was clearly showing the patches of nebulosity that I've only seein in considerably larger apertures from better sites!

The RKE is, I believe, only a three element eyepiece, with exceptionally high transmission - at least that is what I've read! Well, now that I've experienced that for myself, I have to agree. I look forward to using the eyepiece to observe the Veil when I get a chance, and the small reflection nebulae in Orion as well.

Swinging over to Jupiter and inserting a TeleVue 10.5mm smoothside Plossl, I was able to see 8 belts directly, with obvious polar darkening and other colours hinted at in the view (apoart from spurious blue or violet of course)! This was only at 77x magnification!

Every time I take that old Swift out it knocks my socks off. I really must take it to a dark sky site with a few more eyepieces and really put it through its paces...

Ant

[Moonshane]

sounds superb!

[John]

Nice session Ant,

It's so nice when a piece of equipment out performs your expectations

[Mr Onions]

Great report Ant.

Superb looking setup you have there.

Nice to have a visual report instead of all the CCD stuff going on nowadays.

[Marki]

Hi all,

I just came in from a half-hour session with my 1964 Swift 839 60mm f13.5 achromat. It's mounted on a modified AZ-3 for ease of use and "swift" set up (groan) straight from the shed.

...

The view was filled with the whole cluster - it just fit in the eyepiece, and each and every star was a perfect pinpoint of light perfectly focused across the entire field of view. A more perfect match, size-wise, could not have been made for this scope. What really blew me away though, was that the cluster, being viewed through a 48 year old 60mm aperture scope, was clearly showing the patches of nebulosity that I've only seein in considerably larger apertures from better sites!

...

Swinging over to Jupiter and inserting a TeleVue 10.5mm smoothside Plossl, I was able to see 8 belts directly, with obvious polar darkening and other colours hinted at in the view (apoart from spurious blue or violet of course)! This was only at 77x magnification!

Every time I take that old Swift out it knocks my socks off. I really must take it to a dark sky site with a few more eyepieces and really put it through its paces...

Ant

Very nice indeed Ant. I struggle to see nebulosity around stars in the Pleiades with any of my scopes (even my 200mm SCT) from my sub-urban York location. But those swifts have a most excellent reputation! Wonderful .

And nice Avatar, Mr Onions...looks like a lovely scope

[Mr Onions]

Cheers Mark.

[philj]

Nice one Ant. I had the same feelings everytime I took that scope out. Great its being used

Philj

[nightfisher]

planning on joining the swift 839 club in about 3 weeks time