The Edwardian Experience - First Light on a Clarkson 3 inch.

[SuburbanMak]

21 hours ago, badhex said:

Amazing stuff! Looking great.

A couple of thoughts that spring to mind for the longer term. If l you wanted a dovetail that is a (closer) colour match, one of the William Optics gold anodised dovetails might work - plus they have a long slot over one half instead of set holes at specific distances so no drilling would be required. They don't have the raised edges though so you might have to shim it somehow. I do quite like the black and brass though!

Re finder mounting - rather than have to drill the tube, perhaps you could find a very thin/lightweight tube ring with standard bolt holes, onto which you can mount any finder shoe you like.

Thank you - good suggestions all. I’ll definitely look into the tube ring option for finder mounting. 
For interest here are the 2 finder candidates I have…

[Highburymark]

Then there are also the Meade/Coronado Cemax gold eyepieces, which are supposed to be perfected for solar viewing, but I think are probably basic Plossls at inflated prices……. and far too tacky and inauthentic for such a beautiful telescope.

[SuburbanMak]

Managed to get out for some testing late last night. Despite a lot of high cloud there were a few holes and the moon was bright enough to penetrate the cloud most of the time. Seeing however was quite steady. 
 

Jupiter was setting to SSW by the time I got out but was able to catch a nice view of the 2 main equatorial bands and the string of moons, enjoyed the different alignment from when I’ve been viewing earlier in the evenings. 

Did a star test on Capella and was able to see concentric rings - not quite perfect, a slight bulge to the upper right, but the lens cell isn’t collimatable so I think I’ll leave well alone. All but the brightest stars show as nice tight balls & only a very slight offset “tail” on the higher magnitudes, certainly not the “seagulls” I’ve had with pinched optics in other scopes. 

The moon looked great and could pick out real detail along the terminator with (I think) Gassendi showing particularly well and the area to the N.E of sinus Iridium (J. Herschel , Babbage region) looking fabulously 3D. Also noted the “double” nature of one of Tycho’s rays.  The sweet spot in terms of magnification was 63x with an 18mm BCO. I was able to use the 10mm for 114x power but was losing a bit of contrast, probably due to the veil of high cloud. On a night of clean transparency I am sure I could usefully use up to 190x with the 6mm. 
 

Elsewhere I enjoyed a fab view of the Pleiades, framed neatly in the 1.39 degree maximum fov afforded by a 32mm Plossl (c35x).   Lovely star field and despite the murk definitely pulling out stars down to around 10th magnitude. 
 

Attempted to look at The Orion Nebula as is rose in the East and was granted a tantalising brief view of the familiar dark clouds and a tiny trapezium before the cloud really made things futile.  It was also dewy by this time so I packed up. 
 

Throughout the finder worked perfectly and best of all the AZGTi in point and track mode meant no need for constant nudging to keep objects in the field - very important as a tube this length takes a couple of seconds to settle after every touch and that gets wearing quite quickly! 
 

Can’t wait to get it out again! 

[SuburbanMak]

Had a short session last night with the Clarkson, mainly to test out alignment on the AZ GTi and see if it would behave. Transparency was not great but the generalised high cloud broke into bands so some obersving was possible in the gaps. 

Jupiter - started with Jupiter, quite low down and not a super view, 2 equatorial bands visible and glimpses of a third in the Northern hemisphere.  Noted that I could only see three of the Galilean moons, sadly I missed the shadow transit but made a nice observation of Io emerging very close the limb. 

Nice split of Almach, good colour contrast - this 'scope works really well with the BCO 18mm giving 63x.

Polaris - secondary visible intermittently with the 10mm BCO giving 114x, 

Epsilon Lyra - scruffy view, split the wider pair with the 10mm, view became too poor with the 6mm to split the second pair at 190x. 

Playing with the GoTo I aligned on Jupiter and Vega and on asked for GoTo on M57 - to my surprise given the conditions the the 32mm Plossl showed a tiny grey full stop right where it should be. Stepping up magnification I was able to see the central ring quite well at 114x against a reasonably rich field - looking on Stellarium I think I was seeing down to around 11th Magnitude. Not bad on an iffy night with a 120 year old 'scope! 

For fun I slewed to M31 and in the 32mm had a nice view of the fuzzy core with some surrounding nebulosity. Nice to finish with an extragalactic first for the Clarkson. 

For some reason I find it very satisfying to slew this old brass tube around using distinctly 21st century WiFi smartphone tech, all very Steampunk  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[JeremyS]

On 17/10/2021 at 15:13, SuburbanMak said:

Managed to get out for some testing late last night. Despite a lot of high cloud there were a few holes and the moon was bright enough to penetrate the cloud most of the time. Seeing however was quite steady. 
 

Jupiter was setting to SSW by the time I got out but was able to catch a nice view of the 2 main equatorial bands and the string of moons, enjoyed the different alignment from when I’ve been viewing earlier in the evenings. 

Did a star test on Capella and was able to see concentric rings - not quite perfect, a slight bulge to the upper right, but the lens cell isn’t collimatable so I think I’ll leave well alone. All but the brightest stars show as nice tight balls & only a very slight offset “tail” on the higher magnitudes, certainly not the “seagulls” I’ve had with pinched optics in other scopes. 

The moon looked great and could pick out real detail along the terminator with (I think) Gassendi showing particularly well and the area to the N.E of sinus Iridium (J. Herschel , Babbage region) looking fabulously 3D. Also noted the “double” nature of one of Tycho’s rays.  The sweet spot in terms of magnification was 63x with an 18mm BCO. I was able to use the 10mm for 114x power but was losing a bit of contrast, probably due to the veil of high cloud. On a night of clean transparency I am sure I could usefully use up to 190x with the 6mm. 
 

Elsewhere I enjoyed a fab view of the Pleiades, framed neatly in the 1.39 degree maximum fov afforded by a 32mm Plossl (c35x).   Lovely star field and despite the murk definitely pulling out stars down to around 10th magnitude. 
 

Attempted to look at The Orion Nebula as is rose in the East and was granted a tantalising brief view of the familiar dark clouds and a tiny trapezium before the cloud really made things futile.  It was also dewy by this time so I packed up. 
 

Throughout the finder worked perfectly and best of all the AZGTi in point and track mode meant no need for constant nudging to keep objects in the field - very important as a tube this length takes a couple of seconds to settle after every touch and that gets wearing quite quickly! 
 

Can’t wait to get it out again! 

Did you use your top hat in front of the telescope to expose  that plate of the Moon? 🤣

Seriously, though, great to see this superb telescope working for you 👍🏻