Charity shop bargain?

[Phil Fargaze]

I just been down the road and I saw a Celestron Astromaster 70 through the window of the charity shop. Didn't have a price on it at the moment but I think I might get down there Monday to check it out. I haven't had a small refractor since I started out as a youngster with a Tasco so it would be really good to have it as a grab and go. 

[Alien 13]

I have bought a few old camera lenses in charity shops for very little money, even if they dont make the grade for astro they are great at daytime video.

Alan

[Knight of Clear Skies]

A member posted a quick review here, sounds promising if the price is reasonable.

[triton1]

I bought a SLR with a 50mm,110,and 300mm lenses for £8 used it for many years and never lost a frame until someone offered me £100 for it.

[Phil Fargaze]

23 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

A member posted a quick review here, sounds promising if the price is reasonable.

Thanks for the link. So, going with the suggestions in the review, I've got a spare finder scope and some decent eyepieces, so I should be able to get the best out of the scope.

It just remains to be seen what price they put on it. Coincidentally, while I was out this morning I saw a pair of binoculars in a different charity shop going for £20. They looked like 10x50 but I didn't recognise the name  of the manufacture. Maybe I should have made a note and checked it out!

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

You're welcome. While we're talking about charity shop astronomical bargains, my best one was a 400mm lens for £10. Just about good enough to do hand-held planetary imaging, as this crescent Venus shows.

I must get around to trying it on Saturn.

[ronin]

Find the price first, you could get a surprise. There was one in a shop here about 6 weeks ago and they wanted £150 for it, as they are half that cost new I didn't think they were going to sell it quickly. Also even not sure the one here was the 70 it seemed smaller so could have been the 60mm. I didn't spend a great deal of time looking at it.

[Phil Fargaze]

So I went back to check out the scope and it was being sold for £25. I gave it a quick check over and everything looked ok so I snapped it up! It came with two Celestron EPs 20mm and 10mm and a diagonal. There were also a couple of leads with it. One is a short USB extension and another has tv coaxial cable connections with a small box with Antiference written on it. Anyway, these don't seem relavent to the scope. I did a quick daylight check on a roof across the gardens and it was a really good image and surprisingly highly magnified. So I checked and it's f ratio is 13. Now I simply cannot wait to give it a try on Saturn and Jupiter. This will really take me back to my Tasco refractor days when I was younger! 

[Erla]

Wow. £25 - it's a real bargain. But from the looks of it you are lucky Saturn is low - otherwise you would have to view it lieing down on your belly ? On the other hand it can be an advantage, especially after glass of wine or two.

[Phil Fargaze]

Actually, the picture might be misleading because I didn't extend the tripod legs. Here's another at full height. Also I forgot to mention the Moon. I reckon that will look a bit good too through the scope. 

[happy-kat]

Great find looks very useable.

[Stub Mandrel]

The tripod seems particularly well made, small scopes usually have really flimsy ones. looks like a bargain!

[Astro Imp]

Well done on snapping up a bargain, I'm sure this will give you a lot of pleasure.

Good luck.

[Grotemobile]

£25 . That is a bargain. Put it on Bay. £125 ono. .

[DAVE AMENDALL]

Surprising how good optically these  reasonably priced small Celestron refractors are. I have been using the Travelscope 70 (F5) as a finder/guidscope  attached to a C8 and have been very pleased with the performance. Have a great time with your bargain....Dave

[spaceboy]

On 7/3/2017 at 19:18, Phil Fargaze said:

Actually, the picture might be misleading because I didn't extend the tripod legs. Here's another at full height. Also I forgot to mention the Moon. I reckon that will look a bit good too through the scope. 

That's a result and what makes it best is your giving to charity at the same time. I purchased one of these off Amazon for my boys first scope. I think we paid something like £65-70 new (several years ago) and while the fit and finish is clearly a budget end scope, optically they are not that bad.

The shame is that it ended up in a charity shop in the first place. In my experience I think I know why this is and it could have so easily been avoided. Astromaster for some reason supply these stupid red dot finders that are near impossible to use to find night sky objects beyond the moon and is no doubt the reason someone felt the need to just give the scope away. Thankfully there is a solution https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/rigel-quikfinder-compact-reflex-sight.html

The mount can also be a bit frustrating to use but can be improved on with a little strip down and re-grease. 

[iPeace]

See how far you can go with it.

The Year Long 60mm Telescope Challenge

[Space Beagle]

Great find, and some really good advise  so far on how to make even better for not a lot of cash!

Well done you for the find!

 

[The storm fisherman]

Just for info the Antiference lead is a normal TV remote extender eye and nothing to do with the telescope but still a good scope at the price. just the sort of bargain i like.

 

[Phil Fargaze]

2 hours ago, iPeace said:

See how far you can go with it.

The Year Long 60mm Telescope Challenge

Looks like some good info, I`ll check it out. With the scope being so portable I was able to set it up in the back garden to take advantage of a gap between the houses and a tree to get it onto Saturn. This is the first time this year I have viewed Saturn. With it being so low and the seeing not good the view wasn't the sharpest but it was still good to see the old beauty. I didn't try using the finder scope with new batteries, but as mentioned, it looks like it won`t work very well anyway. I've  got a spare 9x50 finder I can put on but I think it might be a bit too heavy, I`ll have to check. It looks like the tripod tray is missing but I can make up another one easier enough

[Stub Mandrel]

11 minutes ago, Phil Fargaze said:

spare 9x50 finder

50mm finder seems overkill for a 60mm scope

[Phil Fargaze]

12 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

50mm finder seems overkill for a 60mm scope

Yes I think you're right, I'll have a look around for something a bit smaller!

[happy-kat]

The supplied finder would probably work better if you could raise it up on a stalk.

[Phil Fargaze]

Well, just like waiting for a bus, two of them come along! I have been given a Skylux 70mm F700 refractor. It came with an equatorial mount which was damaged and not much use so I scrapped that. Anyway it just so happens to come with a 6x25 finder scope which would be ideal for the Astromaster I originally got from the charity shop. Gripped by focal ratio fever, (the Skylux is F/10 while the Astromaster is F/13) I set about stripping down the scopes and drilled some holes in the Astromaster tube to accept the finder mount. What better way to pass the twilight eves than stripping down telescopes getting them ready for the darker nights! I got so far until the light began to fade and the battery drill batteries were fading too.