Another antique scope at Philj Towers

[philj]

A hobby of mine is restoring antiques and my favourite bit is antique scopes. I still regret selling my Fullerscopes 4" F15 Deluxe on antique Thos Cooke mount but moving house etc meant reducing STUFF so it had to go.

However, now that repairing the new house has slowed down a bit I can devote more time to my hobby so I thought you might like a butchers at the latest project. Its had me scratching my head a little

 

Its a 3.25" F16 (yes it is loooonnnngggg) Refractor. Tube is embossed James Smith London which dates it to before 1847 as Smith merged with Beck after that date to form Smith and Beck.

However, the objective elements are signed M Pillischer London on the glass edge. Moritz Pillischer was a instrument maker from 1849 to 1887 when Richard Pillischer took over.

So theres a conundrum, the dates dont match.

 

Therefore I reckon its a pre 1847 scope that was retrofitted with a Pillischer lens post 1849 but pre 1887. Perhaps that is when the tube was painted with the crinkle paint which I always thought to be a late 19th early 20c technique to cover poor quality tubes. Hmm

Most of it is fettled now but collimation is slightly out and its a non collimateable cell, so thats another puzzle for me to sort. Thats all part of the fun. However a star test the other night revealed good alignment so again I am puzzled. Not had chance to test it under a clear sky because we havent had one since I got it apart from 5 minutes the other night between clouds where I star tested it.

It came with a homemade accessory box containing 5 RAS eyepieces and a Prism diagonal and a well made but oddly designed tripod so a previous owner really cherished this scope.

I spent a few hours fettling the mount and scope on the lathe with bits of brass making a brass spindle which goes through the tripod head so you can unscrew the cabriole legs off the pillar and screw it on the field tripod as it should be. I then cut the odd wings off the tripod head and removed some very odd ali feet.

Still got to sort a spreader or chain, not made my mind up yet as to which way i will go. Plus stain the wood where ive had to cut and sand.

A handsome beast. Not as big as the 4" F15 (Big Brassy) but commands a similar presence.

 

[happy-kat]

How lovely to have a telescope that age to enjoy

[mikeDnight]

That really is a gorgeous old scope. I really wish modern manufacturers would create things as beautiful as that. My first 4" refractor was made following a similar design. It had a beautiful 1.25" brass drawtube and a similar altazimuth head though not as well made as yours. It also came with a mahogany tripod. The F10 lens was uncoated but it gave me some of my first really detailed views of many Messiers as well as solar system objects. For the princely sum of £99 it was a very good buy, and looked great standing in the corner of my living room. I wish i still had it!

[philj]

Thats nice Mike. We all have regrets over scopes we shouldnt have parted with, all part of the journey.

Theres something special about using vintage and antique gear for astro. Ok technology has made life easier these days but just taking a step back ovcassionally and doing stuff the old way is refreshing and grounding.

[HAsun]

Hi Philj,

I have a few antique scopes myself as you probably know. I bought your 4" f15 and sold it, but I still have the mount here at the moment. I also love obseving with old scopes and wondering what the previous owners must have thought when they looked thtough them. My oldest large scope is a 5" gregorian with speculum metal mirror made by Edward Nerne. I have adapted an antique mount and tripod to it.

 

[philj]

Hi Patrick. Yeah I saw the scope for sale awhile back, you also had the 3" BC Starboy on modded eq3, do you still have that?

Interesting about the gregorian 5" is a decent size for one of those, how do you go about polishing the mirrors?

 

 

[philj]

This was a resto project I sold at auction earlier this year to fund this James Smith. It was a Broadhurst Clarkson 3" Starboy but engraved Franks. BC often supplied to dealers that way.

It was a handsome scope had a few issues that required a bit of lathe work but it worked well. I imaged the moon through it and it was quite useable.

[maw lod qan]

Beautiful scopes!

That F16 is definitely a star cannon!

[HAsun]

15 hours ago, philj said:

Hi Patrick. Yeah I saw the scope for sale awhile back, you also had the 3" BC Starboy on modded eq3, do you still have that?

Interesting about the gregorian 5" is a decent size for one of those, how do you go about polishing the mirrors?

 

 

Hi Phil,

Yes I do still have the BC 3" on the EQ3 mount and mahogany tripod that you made for it.

The mirror in the 5" Gregorian is still quite reflective, so does not need repolishing fortunately. I have no idea how one would go about repolishing it though. I have used it to view land based objects and the moon and it works quite well on those.

[HAsun]

I had a similar problem regarding alignment of a Cooke Photo Visual Lens. The scope gave very good views of the moon and land based objects, but when focused on a star was out of alignment. I eventually gave the lens to Es Read to fix, and now it works fine. I also have 4.5" lens that I'm trying to adapt to a tube that gives good images of the moon and land based objects, but appears to be out of alignment hmm..

[philj]

Hi Patrick.

This scope gives good intra and extra focal discs and sharp in focus stars, thats what puzzles me because the cheshire eyepiece test shows slight misalignment. I suspect the long FL of F16 is more forgiving of slight alignment problems.

[badhex]

I just read your first light report @philj so had to go back and find the refurbish post too - great stuff! I have a Charles Frank 6" reflector from around 1960-1970 ish which is in working order but needs some love. It's been in storage for quite some time, during which I picked up a few more 0.965" EPs but I've been reunited with it recently so want to give it an outing sometime soon. 

BTW slightly off topic, but @HAsun I think you would be able to repolish the speculum mirror by using a convex pitch lap matched to the mirror.

From a blank, you'd start with a matching convex brass/speculum grinding tool with progressively finer grit (sand in those days I think) and then eventually using fine polishing powder and a pitch lap. I guess, although I'm not an expert, that you might be able to just skip straight to the pitch lap since your mirror is already ground to shape.

There's a short video on the process below. 

It's basically the same process with glass mirrors these days, with the final stage after polishing being the aluminium coating.

I know Terry, the expert in the video, and attend mirror making classes with him. I'm sure if anybody here ever needed speculum mirrors repolishing or glass mirrors recoating he would be able to help. He recoated my Charles Frank mirror and did a great job, so I ended up attending the club and making a 10" mirror. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by badhex

[philj]

Finally managed to get a quick image through the 180 plus year old scope. I was hoping to get more subs so I could stack but by the time I had set up and got the first sub it was wall to wall cloud here.

Single test 1/100s 200asa  Olympus OM D EM 1. Sharpened and contrast in PS3 a bit noisy due to single sub but it shows promise.

Good image scale on the MFT chip at F16, fills the chip nicely.