PZO T50x70 school telescope

[astrolulu]

I would like to share information that I have completed my material devoted to the Polish Mak PZO T50x70 developed in 1958.

I've never felt any particular sympathy for it, and although I've been close to buying it a few times, usually quite worn-out examples, motivated more by a sense of duty than desire ("my friends in America have it, but I don't...") - so far we've passed each other by. Finally, I received a "turquoise gem", and I spent some time working on it, mainly renovating the tripod. And as we chatted, we liked each other so much that I started collecting some information about T50x70. And I started writing an article summarizing what I had found out.

Due to the completely incomprehensible decision of the then communist authorities to export almost everything that was not sent to schools, this only Polish telescope from those times remains largely unknown in our country. Paradoxically - it seems to be much more popular abroad, mainly in the USA.... I decided that it would be a good idea to at least try to collect materials about it and put them in one place, so that those interested have something to refer to, and then to translate this text to English.

So I did. I invite you to read the preliminary version of this material. I am very much counting on comments and corrections from anyone who has any knowledge about the history of the T50x70. If you have illustrative materials worth showing, I will be grateful for sharing them. I am sure that there are many errors and inaccuracies in the text and I hope that there will be a chance to eliminate them thanks to the help of "eyewitnesses" who had the opportunity to play with this small instrument.

I apologize in advance for any linguistic clumsiness - my qualifications in this regard are very limited, if you have any comments on this subject, please feel free to send them to me. My direct e-mail for matters that you do not want or do not make sense to discuss publicly: lulu@astrostrona.pl

The article, which was also created thanks to the kindness of colleagues from the CloudyNights and Astropolis.pl forums, can be found on my blog: https://astrostrona.pl/na-ziemi/graciarnia/pzo-t50x70-polish-school-telescope-of-the-millennium/

Thank you for your time, attention and help.

[globular]

Very interesting.  Thanks for posting.

[Mandy D]

@astrolulu I've just bought a 90 mm Mak in a similar colour to that one. Yours looks bomb-proof, though. I'm impressed by the folded steel(?) mounting bracket: it looks truly substantial. The whole thing reminds me of 1960s seaside binoculars mounted on a pier into which you had to insert one old penny to use them for two minutes!

It is hard to think of you as anything other than a native English speaker when reading your posts, so don't worry about that. Your English is certainly better than my Polish which is limited to tak, sklep, solidarnosk and perastroika and I've probably messed up on the spellings!

I will have a read of the article on your blog, later.

[astrolulu]

Thanks Mandy, you're right - armored construction is a typical feature of Eastern Bloc equipment, especially since it was usually produced for public use. Anyone who has tried to lift a Zeiss Jena Telementor knows what I'm talking about 🙂 People who are not prepared for this experience sometimes think that the tripod is permanently attached to the floor... In the case of the T50x70 it is not so bad however - the telescope and the tripod are relatively light and comfortable to carry.

P.S. 'perestroika' is a Russian, or rather Soviet, term meaning 'reconstruction'. In Poland, no one believed in the possibility of "reconstructing" the communist system - it was clear that it simply had to be overthrown. 🙂

[John]

I'd like to find one of those for the tripod - it's lovely 😁

[astrolulu]

I worked on the tripod for days. I removed the original varnish, then applied 4 layers of shellac and protected it against moisture with 2 layers of yacht varnish. As a result, the color of the wood returned to the dark tone in which it originally came to me, while also retaining its high gloss, which surprised me a bit, but it seems that these old tripods were painted in this way by PZO.

It turns out that at the moment this model of an old tripod has become very sought after in Poland as an element of "loft" style interior design. Heavy stage spotlights are mounted on it, which contrast well with the light, openwork structure. On advertising portals, such a tripod in the interior design section can cost many times more than the entire set with the telescope in the astro equipment section 🙂

[Mandy D]

10 minutes ago, astrolulu said:

 On advertising portals, such a tripod in the interior design section can cost many times more than the entire set with the telescope in the astro equipment section 🙂

Sadly, art is worth far more to most people than science or engineering ever will be!

[astrolulu]

Even worse - it's hard to talk about art here, rather a temporary stylistic trend... 🙂