Tasco 17TR Refractor

[Aussie Dave]

I picked up a classic Tasco 17TR achromatic doublet refractor yesterday for a single redback. D80mm FL900mm F11.25, push pull focuser with R&P, made in Japan.

It was in very poor condition and I didn't think it could be saved and thought it would only be used for spare parts. I cleaned the OTA last night, took the collimatable lens cell out, pulled the focuser apart, disassembled the mirror diagonal and It all cleaned up very well. Only down side is the marks on the outside of the OTA which are quite bad. It's missing the finderscope and a couple of it's adjustment screws and the tripod is also missing a couple of parts and needs a good clean.

I tested the scope late last night on the super moon with 3 spare 0.965" eyepieces (SR4mm, 15mm, HM25mm). I was pleasantly surpirsed with it's performance with all eyepieces. The 15mm and 25mm were great giving nice sharp views of luna detail while the 4mm pushed the scope past it's limits and I couldn't reach a pleasing and acceptable focus, which is understandable. The scope showed only a very small amount of CA with the 4mm. I think I may have scored the better of the bunch with this budget purchase.

[brantuk]

For twenty dollars you can't go wrong - great grab 'n' go once tarted up - and when you're tired of it, sell on to a newbie who just wants a cheap dabble. Meantime it's been a fab little project for you. I love doing these sorta things - even if you wreck it, it hasn't cost anything and you learn a lot about scopes. Nice one

[happy-kat]

Perhaps worth getting a .965 to 1.25 adaptor think you can get them as a diagonal, would give it legs to live a while.

Looks more substantial then some equivalents today.

[Aussie Dave]

For twenty dollars you can't go wrong - great grab 'n' go once tarted up - and when you're tired of it, sell on to a newbie who just wants a cheap dabble. Meantime it's been a fab little project for you. I love doing these sorta things - even if you wreck it, it hasn't cost anything and you learn a lot about scopes. Nice one

Agreed brantuk, it will more than likely be sold on eventually to fund better gear, as I'm sure most of us do. Nice easy projects working with telescopes, have a couple going atm.

Will whack a generic finderscope in it. Finding original parts is tricky, will hunt around locally.

Perhaps worth getting a .965 to 1.25 adaptor think you can get them as a diagonal, would give it legs to live a while.

Looks more substantial then some equivalents today.

A good idea happy-kat if I was going to keep it which I don't think I will, as nice as it is. I'll have a good play with it to see what it can do, source a few parts, clean it up and pass it on. It's a good starter scope.

[Roy Challen]

Nice little frac! Don't bother with a hybrid diagonal though, a 0.965 - 1.25 adapter is cheaper, probably more readily available and will allow you to use a decent diagonal. That's what I use with my Prinz 660. There are decent 0.965" eyepieces too, if you spend time to look around - CZJ orthos (the Huygens are really good too if used in a slow enough achro) or Tak MC orthos. These give excellent views on the Moon, and double stars, and are pretty good on planets too.

[Aussie Dave]

I won't be buying a Hybrid diagonal, an adapter I might buy if a cheap one pops up in my search results while looking for other things. The 15mm & 25mm 0.965" EP's that I have worked very well with this scope. I'm happy with that. I do have a 0.965" cheap plastic 3x Barlow from years ago too that I haven't tested with this scope yet, so that gives me 4 magnifications. The 4mm will go back in the case for another day.

I found a spare finderscope but I feel it's too good to put on the Tasco. It's a Celestron 6x30 LER.

What I'm chasing up now are 2 of the original finderscope adjustment screws.

[F15Rules]

Nice find Dave  . Looks like a classic Circle T Towa scope..does it have the circle T symbol on the focuser label?

I've not seen many, if any, at 80mm F11 like this one, an 80mm tends to be more like F15 like the 80mm F1200mm Towa Topic/Meade 339. How is the star test intra and extra focal? Just looking at the focuser end more closely, it looks as if it has a coarse focus drawtube (push-pull) and another fine focus tube which is operated by the focuser wheels? If so, this is just like the Towa Topic F15 scopes, and it might be worth looking inside the chromed draw tubes to see if they are baffled. If so, they could vignette the view if used with 1.25" eyepieces, so you could just knock them out using light taps on a large screwdriver - they are just thin steel and tend to pop out easily enough. Doing this with my F15 Towa a couple of years back transformed the views using modern eps. The lenses are very good generally.

In any event you have a bargain there. I must admit I'm not keen on the red colour, so if it has lots of marks as you say, might be worth spraying it a nice traditional white shade..    .

+1 for the 0.965" - 1.25" adapter, they work well with this kind of scope, and a decent modern eyepiece can really perform well with these old scopes.

Dave

PS: if it's a Circle T, the scope IS worth putting that 6x30 finder on it!

[Aussie Dave]

Nah Dave it doesn't have the circle T.

The F11.25 spec I only got from another astronomer website from a guy that had a few scopes in his collection. I'm not 100% sure on that. There was another website that said it was F1 which I don't think is possible, more than likely a typo.

I haven't done a star test yet, only the moon the other night after the full OTA clean. Yes it does have a coarse focus drawtube push-pull inside the outer fine focus tube, rack and pinion focuser. The outer fine focus tube only has 40mm travel. I'm not sure on the purpose of this design. The photo below shows the push pull inside tube only half way pulled out. That has 150mm travel total. It's the first type I've had like this. It's possible to replace the focuser and flange and put a much better duel focuser on it but would like to keep this one original.

It does have the baffle inside the drawtube too which I noticed while cleaning when I first got it. I will leave that in there for now.

The next photo shows the worst of the damage on the tube, an easy fix really. There's a couple of deep scratches underneath the scope in the red paintwork and tube itself but not too bad and not noticable once set up and the usual small marks and minor chips in the black here and there from age and starage. Slight surface rust on some of the screws.

You may have talked me in to keeping it a bit longer than expected Dave. I do have a soft spot for the older gear.

[Jarvo]

My first scope was a 60mm tasco refractor from Argos one Christmas many many years ago. Got my first view of Saturn with it. Rest is history.

Steve

[paul mc c]

I think it was where most of us started,got mine in 1981 and still have it today.

[Dave In Vermont]

Nice find, Dave. The damage, if it were mine, would be easily taken care of with my permanent black-marker. And I'd Teflon® the R & P focuser with a good grease - available at better bicycle-shops. But I'd say you have a nice anyone's first-scope from back in my time.

I'd also give it a treat:

http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_eda9.htm

Worth bookmarking the site. They ship internationally. They have everything under the stars!

http://www.scopestuff.com/index.html

I like the silly, red colour -

Dave

[F15Rules]

Dave,

Have a look at this thread (and there's a link in it to another thread which is interesting too): http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/445604-tasco-japan-80mm-model-17t-and-17tr/

The sub-thread link here: http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/325903-tasco-model-17t-telescope/page-1#entry4179176

It's from Cloudy Nights in the USA where there is a big fan base of old refractors and some very knowledgeable people over there. Your scope is, I am now certain, a Towa Japan Circle T one, and quite rare. Look at your focuser label compared to the ones on the CN thread - virtually identical apart from yours lacking the little Circle T logo. In all other respects the scope looks identical, including the small focus tube baffle.

Does your objective cell have collimating screws too? Another sign of good quality if it does. An 80mm F11 scope can show you an awful lot of things in the night sky, especially if you have access to dark skies - can compete with a 4" scope in urban skies..

It's definitely worth keeping and putting that finder on it (you can see it originally came with a long 30mm finder which wasn't bad optically but had a very narrow field of view) - the SW 6x30 will be a good match optically for the scope.

Congratulations on a really nice find!

Dave

[Aussie Dave]

Nice find, Dave. The damage, if it were mine, would be easily taken care of with my permanent black-marker. And I'd Teflon® the R & P focuser with a good grease - available at better bicycle-shops. But I'd say you have a nice anyone's first-scope from back in my time.

I'd also give it a treat:

http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_eda9.htm

Worth bookmarking the site. They ship internationally. They have everything under the stars!

http://www.scopestuff.com/index.html

I like the silly, red colour -

Dave

LOL, black marker. That's the first thing that popped in to my head Dave. Those Sharpies and Artliners are very handy. Thanks for that link too, Bookmarked!

Dave,

Have a look at this thread (and there's a link in it to another thread which is interesting too): http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/445604-tasco-japan-80mm-model-17t-and-17tr/

The sub-thread link here: http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/325903-tasco-model-17t-telescope/page-1#entry4179176

It's from Cloudy Nights in the USA where there is a big fan base of old refractors and some very knowledgeable people over there. Your scope is, I am now certain, a Towa Japan Circle T one, and quite rare. Look at your focuser label compared to the ones on the CN thread - virtually identical apart from yours lacking the little Circle T logo. In all other respects the scope looks identical, including the small focus tube baffle.

Does your objective cell have collimating screws too? Another sign of good quality if it does. An 80mm F11 scope can show you an awful lot of things in the night sky, especially if you have access to dark skies - can compete with a 4" scope in urban skies..

It's definitely worth keeping and putting that finder on it (you can see it originally came with a long 30mm finder which wasn't bad optically but had a very narrow field of view) - the SW 6x30 will be a good match optically for the scope.

Congratulations on a really nice find!

Dave

I have that second link bookmarked already Dave from searching for it online but not the first link, thanks for that. The more info the better. I even saved some of those photo to compare them with this scope. There's not a lot of info out there for it. I've been searching for specs (F #) for 3 nights now. I've only found 2 webpages that list the F#. One listed it as F11 on an Astromart ad and the other F11.25 that I've already mentioned earlier in this thread. I'm sticking with F11.

I even searched through some old manuals and advertising material from back in the day but back then they didn't advertise the F#. Check this next link out, it has a lot of older manuals and advertising material for scopes I've never even heard of. Good reading and classic photos of the older gear, great stiuff.

http://geogdata.csun.edu/~voltaire/classics/

Ok I've found what you's guy's mean by the "circle T" thing. It's in the bottom right hand corner of the focuser label. Mine does not have that. So does that mean this is the rarer one?

Yes it does have objective cell collimating screws Dave.

[Aussie Dave]

My first scope was a 60mm tasco refractor from Argos one Christmas many many years ago. Got my first view of Saturn with it. Rest is history.

Steve

I think it was where most of us started,got mine in 1981 and still have it today.

My very first telescope as a child was a small white tabletop Tasco. It only had one EP that was screwed on, horrible exit pupil and the viewing was very poopy. But I loved that scope and thought it was the best thing ever.

[Roy Challen]

Aussie Dave, I'm sure you know this- the f/ratio of your scope is 900/80=11.25!

[Aussie Dave]

Aussie Dave, I'm sure you know this- the f/ratio of your scope is 900/80=11.25!

Nope   I was meaning to ask how you actually worked it out on a scope.

I have learned something new today.

[F15Rules]

Don't know if the lack of Circle T logo makes it rare Dave, but that is a nice scope and should perform well if no one has tampered with the lens. For 20 Oz dollars its a steal!

Let us have a proper first light report on it?

Dave

[Randall]

Hi, I just joined this forum because I noticed this topic while looking for a focuser upgrade for this very same scope. I picked up this tasco 80mm scope at a goodwill store for $29.00 a few weeks ago in what looks like new condition. Still in the original box with all the accessories,  even the pen that has a red light and original unopened batteries.  There was even a little plastic wrap still stuck to the optical tube. The label doesn't have the circle t on it but looks identical to this one. I have taken it out a couple of times and have been impressed with the view of Jupiter and the Moon. I would like to install a crayford style focuser on it , but the optical tube diameter is 80mm and haven't been able to locate a focuser with this diameter flange. Does anyone know where one could be obtained, or would I have to get one with the larger diameter flange and have it machined down to 80mm?  Is there anyone that could give me some ideas?