Need a stand for a telescope. Please help.

[Cosmic Geoff]

So the telescope is in fact a 4 and a half inch reflector with a focal length of 900 mm(?).  That it was made in Japan is a plus.  Options are to have somebody make up a set of three legs, or figure out how to attach it to a ready-made tripod. Both will require some DIY skills.

Ideally you should find someone familiar with astro telescopes, who could assemble the telescope and check it over.

In theory the scope could be mounted on a different mount using scope rings and a dovetail (q.v.) but I suspect this would be well outside your budget.

[Wageslave]

Someone upthread very kindly posted this. Are these legs what I need?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295558144083?hash=item44d0a36053:g:LC0AAOSwBBtj9hVw&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA0KTEE0t0Le6%2BHp%2B9VWOk8vJNQRU1LAS3Gog86LtO25ipj%2BXsX1Dr%2FSAPpGh9MSc8WuKcnA9hyEl0sg5MJdLTpSObfkiEAmrGz%2F9A8ZRQhhra0Nj3R8D0MxZcN%2F0C4iwgJdE0DKIMaCo35ifUlNSXdxCTPyowxo%2FhG5VDjda8bTGhvhl0HPKNWWLUv%2BkJNHdhtMQSx9brV2TL0MHbKy2Z6FnGCvMBNJERc2%2FLQFrbaJQhf0C3JEVPD%2Bm7LioYnwgF6YHauM2KMKnoFVG%2FGNVnvBA%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR_yZ4YbZYQ

 

[Nyctimene]

Please avoid cleaning the mirrors; they could be scratched very easily (and, as your picture shows, seem to be in rather good condition), and do not even touch them (tell this to your granddaughter!). Other optical surfaces, as the finderscope's (left tube in your picture above; the right one is the Barlow lens), can be carefully cleaned with a photographer's airblower. Keep the telescope horizontal, when you work on it, so any falling parts cannot harm the primary mirror.

Stephan

[Cosmic Geoff]

1 hour ago, Wageslave said:

Someone upthread very kindly posted this. Are these legs what I need?

Possibly. If you posted a clear picture of the leg attachment points on the one you have got, we could answer with more confidence.  Some DIY might still be required.   You could measure up yours and send the seller a question. That might help you decide if it's worth an investment of £35.45.

[Jasonb]

Ok, not to be too simplistic, but I thought I'd label exactly what you have, which might makes things a bit clearer for you and us (if you pardon the pun... )

 

!. The Reflector Telescope Tube itself.

2. The Mount, which is used to attach the Telescope to the Tripod (which you're obviously missing) and to enable you to move the Telescope around to view different objects in the sky

3. The Finder Scope. This is a smaller telescope which you attach to the main Telescope to make it easier to find objects in the sky.

4. What looks like a Barlow, which is a type of lens that you connect to the telescope to increase the magnification of whatever eyepiece (more of that in a minute) you are using

5. A slow-motion control. It's attached to the Mount and twisting it moves the Telescope in a more precise manner for when you only want to barely move it.

6. An Eyepiece. This is connected to the Telescope and you look through it. Different Eyepieces give different views/magnifications.

 

 

7. This hole is where the Eyepiece goes in, and the little screws hold it in place. You then look through the eyepiece. In very simple terms, light (from the stars, moon etc.) comes down the tube of the telescope, bounces off the big mirror at the bottom (called the Primary Mirror), and then bounces off the smaller mirror back near the top (the Secondary Mirror) and is therefore pointed at the eyepiece so you can see.

8. The focuser wheel, used to bring the star/moon etc. into focus. It would be a simple test to turn that and see if it moves easily or is going to need work.

9. The Bracket for the Finder Scope (Number 3 in the first pic). It slots in there, and you can look through it to make sure you can see the star/moon etc. before you look in the Eyepiece.

I hope all that helps a little?

As for the tripod on eBay, whether it would work for you would really come down to the measurements, will either side of the top of the tripod legs fit around the protrusions at the bottom of your mount for example. That can be easily measured on your mount, and you could ask the seller to measure it on eBay. But there are a few more things you could check to make sure the Telescope is usable before you buy the one on eBay. 

Is there any writing on the Eyepiece? And could you measure the diameter of the metal cylinder at the bottom of the eyepiece? Also, if you could take a pic looking down the tube where the eye piece goes, it will give us a view of the smaller mirror.

Thanks!

 

Edited March 10 by Jasonb

[StevieDvd]

This one on ebay looks like a better bet for parts, depending on bids:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325565354275?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818143230%26meid%3D81f93d173a014dcb8c646d5613efa8e9%26pid%3D101224%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D295558144083%26itm%3D325565354275%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWeb%26brand%3DTasco&_trksid=p2047675.c101224.m-1

 

[DaveL59]

31 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

This one on ebay looks like a better bet for parts, depending on bids:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325565354275?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818143230%26meid%3D81f93d173a014dcb8c646d5613efa8e9%26pid%3D101224%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D295558144083%26itm%3D325565354275%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWeb%26brand%3DTasco&_trksid=p2047675.c101224.m-1

 

I'd prefer the wood legs for less wobble, but yes as that's a complete scope with luck the eyepieces would work on the other, or if not it may be a simple swap to switch the focuser over (4 screws). There's also the balance bar and weight that don't seem to be in any pics of the kit were talking about on the thread and hopefully could be used on either.

Also it has a telrad finder, if you like/prefer those 😉 

So on balance this may be the better choice.

[Wageslave]

Massive thanks for labelling the pieces @Jasonb, it makes things much much easier. 
I’m not entirely sure what part of the eyepiece you want measured.  It says moon on one side and, once you remove the little plastic cover, 6mm on the other. 
I’ve taken a pic of the other mirror and it seems to be in similar condition to the first.

It’s rather a long shot but I’ve contacted the community warehouse place that sold me the telescope to see if they had the legs lying about somewhere. I’m fairly confident they would be handed in with the scope but, given that they described looking for them as akin to finding a needle in a haystack, I’m not hopeful they’ll be found. I’m to call again mid week. Fingers crossed.

 

Edited March 10 by Wageslave
Clarity

[wulfrun]

14 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Also it has a telrad finder, if you like/prefer those 😉

Even better, the Telrad may actually work, if fitted the right way round! 🙂

[Wageslave]

Not quite sure what pics of the mount were needed (Yay, haven’t I come a long way - yesterday it was just a sticky out thing). Anyway here’s several from different angles. 
 

[DaveL59]

The mount is almost complete. Legs would each bolt in position 1 (per leg, x3 legs), the screws/bolts from the donor legs would slide into the slots on the last pic which make them easy to remove so you'd need to be careful lifting the rig if you've loosened those bolts 😉 Having swapped a Celestron starsense tripod legs for old/vintage ones they're often of a similar gap or can be splayed slightly to fit without too much issue.

 

Where I've marked 2 above there should be a metal bar and a weight that would act to counter-balance the weight of the reflector tube (OTA - optical tube assembly) and without that you might find the slow motion controls hard to turn and potentially wear/jam. As circled below from the second ebay listing.

You might even be able to use the tripod and mount from that scope but the way the OTA fits is different. Looks like there's a plate that bolts onto the OTA so it may be possible to adapt that to fit yours, or just use the ebay one as-is and see how it goes then decide what you want to do with the one you have 🙂 

The diameter that was being asked about is likely these parts where I marked a blue line:

re

Modern scopes use 1.25-inch (31.5mm) bore where the old japanese scopes were often 0.965-inch and these are harder to get decent eyepieces in now.

Edited March 10 by DaveL59

[Jasonb]

Yep, that's exactly the diameter I was looking for. I read through the Instructions linked upthread, and it doesn't mention if the Eyepieces are .965 inches or 1.25 inches.  

If this is to be a working telescope, you will need more Eyepieces. The one you have, the 6mm one, will give you 150x magnification (and a very high and probably not very usable 300x magnification if used with the 2x Barlow). Usually you would also get an Eyepiece with a telescope that would be maybe 25mm or 20mm, which would be 36x magnification or 45x magnification in this telescope; a much lower magnification and a much better place to start (usually, when observing something, we start with a lower magnification and then move up to higher).

So, by measuring the diameter of the blue lines in @DaveL59's post above, we get a sense of how easy it will be for you to get more Eyepieces for this telescope.

Edited March 10 by Jasonb

[Jasonb]

27 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

 

 

This Pic from @DaveL59 shows you the red line (1) which is the width of the part of the mount that attaches to the tripod legs.

If it's the same width as the width of the red lines/arrows in the pic below (taken from the eBay tripod pic) then the tripod legs from that eBay Ad will *probably* fit your mount. However, as others have said, the second eBay Ad, while possibly not as sturdy a tripod, might have other extras that would come in handy (like the counter weight DaveL69 talked about, and possibly more Eyepieces, that might fit yours (and we'll know that once you measure those "blue lines"

 

Hope that makes sense!

Edited March 10 by Jasonb