Telescope house those days have gone!..?

[Helen]

46 minutes ago, FLO said:

 

It wasn't a good telescope. The larger/heavier OTA was too much for the mounts plastic gears. I heard later they upgraded the gears to metal but they didn't upgrade the motors, so they struggled. That was years ago, I daresay they have solved those problems now. 

Steve

Yes, I had one, heavy-duty metal lens cover and plastic gears and lightweight motors 👀  and very power sensitive too.  BUT the optics are great - I've deforked and the tube works nicely on a azgti 😉 

 

I bought a Meade LX10 from the aladin's cave of BC&F in Farindon - they were super-helpful 😎

Helen

[johnturley]

On 13/05/2020 at 14:30, Second Time Around said:

My brother and I had a secondhand  6" f/8 AE on an undriven German equatorial with a metal tripod, both in that same blue colour.  Both the optics and mount we're excellent.

Our scope had a closed tube, but most AE Newtonians were an early truss design.

That would have been about 1975.  I well remember the excitement of seeing the Ring Nebula for the first time!

 

That looks like the AE 'A' Type Equatorial Head, they did the 'A', 'B', and 'C' Type German Heads, and the 'D' Type Fork Mount, the mount on my 14in Newtonian made by Rob Miller (who at one time used to work for Fullerscopes) of Astro Systems (Luton) is bit similar to their 'D' Type Fork Mount.

Looking at the number of wires going to the motors, they do not appear to be the original ones, which would have been a 240v mains AC motor for the RA Drive, and probably a 12v reversible DC motor for the Dec.

My Astro Systems mount still has the original motors, which touchwood are still working ok after 36 years.

John 

[Supernova74]

Telescope house definitely made telescopes to last British engineering At its best 

[John]

Fullerscopes reminded me of TAL scopes from Russia. Robust, slightly "agricultural", a touch over-engineered, a bit quirky but they worked well.

I still have one of their early catalogues:

Rob Miller went over to the USA to work with Roland Christen at Astro Physics on their mounts I believe. Also worked with Software Bisque on the Paramount. I have an Astro Systems catalogue somewhere as well. Rather sad probably ......

 

 

 

[johnturley]

2 minutes ago, John said:

 

 

Rob Miller went over to the USA to work with Roland Christen at Astro Physics on their mounts I believe. Also worked with Software Bisque on the Paramount.

 

 

 

That would explain the similarity between my mount and the Paramount Taurus Fork Mount, however I paid a lot less than the current price of the latter. 

[Supernova74]

I also believe that Ed Harrison used to be a part of the team at telescope house now he runs solo with his own dealership