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Prinz Astral 500 (circle T) refractor

Totnesdave

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Totnesdave

Totnesdave

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Well, 5 days and counting before I'm allowed to unpack my C100 ED and still quite happily re-familiarising using my 25 year old Prinz Astral 500 60mm refractor, I thought I would post a couple of pics here for fun, for those of you with a penchant for old scopes from the era of big hair and mullets ! (guilty as charged:D)

Lovely clear night last night after the cloud cleared like a stage curtain drawing, :D ... dashed out and had some nice views of crater features on the lunar terminator, pin sharp views of Saturn, rings edge on, seemed to see the ring shadow on the planets surface, and Titan about 4 or 5 Saturn widths off to the 'left'. Trying out with some used plossls and an 1.25/0.965" adaptor gave some nice results with no really noticeable false colour, actually this scope does not seem as cheapo as you might expect from a purchase from Dixons and the equatorial mount is still smooth and easy to use.

A happy evening, really settling back into the hobby, and not bad views from my backyard too, in a housing estate but reasonably shielded from lights by garage gable wall and fences.

Saturn is always a fave, I still remember first seeing it back after I bought the scope, the rings were really wide open back then, and just being blown away by this delicate little jewel in the heavens !

I think I'm going to keep my old telescope too, in fact I'm going out on the lawn this afternoon for a spot of solar projection :)

Dave :D

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russ

russ

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Oh wow, a trip down memory lane for me. That was my second scope after a 50mm Tasco. I bought one secondhand in 1985 with my paper round money. Had three very happy years with it before getting my first dob.

Thanks for showing the photos, almost brings a lump to the throat. :D

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StarMan1701

StarMan1701

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My first telescope, while branded 'Bresser Optik', was exactly the same as yours, (apart from the OTA being a different colour). I bought it back in 1987 and it gave me my first good views of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I sold it in 1991 and, to be honest, have regretted it ever since. :D

Lee.

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sgazer

sgazer

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Oh wow, a trip down memory lane for me. That was my second scope after a 50mm Tasco. I bought one secondhand in 1985 with my paper round money. Had three very happy years with it before getting my first dob.

Thanks for showing the photos, almost brings a lump to the throat. :)

You must have had a better paper round than I did! £1 a week for 100 papers I seem to recall, took me 3 hours in the northern winter in 6ft of snow and we ate coal for breakfast! :D

Nice scope by the way

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russ

russ

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You must have had a better paper round than I did! £1 a week for 100 papers I seem to recall, took me 3 hours in the northern winter in 6ft of snow and we ate coal for breakfast! :D

A friend and i got one of the freebie papers to deliver. A guy used to turn up on a Wednesday evening dump all these bundles in the garage. We had to deliver 800 papers a week over the space of two evenings and one day. It was exhausting! We did get £10 each a week which was much better than the standard paper round and no early morning starts.

The scope cost £70 secondhand. Plus i got £30 for the Tasco. :)

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Totnesdave

Totnesdave

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No worries, is nice to hear the old nostalgia being dredged up :D

The Astral 500 retailed at £189 in Dixons then, but was in the Xmas (1984?) sale at a princely (prinzly?) £99.95.

I remember chasing round the West Midlands after xmas, trying to find one in stock : Walsall, Sutton Coldfield, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, eventually found one left in the Brum branch near Corporation Street...carried it proudly home ! :D:hello2::)

Before that I had an ancient 60mm altazimuth jobbie with no finderscope that I was given when I was a little nipper - could just about find the moon with it ... heh :)

Dave

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Totnesdave

Totnesdave

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just to prove it still works .... just been out 'in anger' solar observing, via projection of course....:D

Sketched the spots and tried to take a photo of the projection screen, didn't work so well though, focus issues with my LUMIX zoom, fiddled with photoshop and dragged a bit of data out and a triangular grouping of three spots with a fainter set of 3 'claws' shaped ones nearby. It's all a bit lost in the texture of the card screen I think following contrast boost but heck, it was fun to try !

Enough of my waffle :)

Dave

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Totnesdave

Totnesdave

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End of an era...in with the new, and what a difference, after 25 years (on & off) of the same telescope I have to say I'm gobsmacked by the difference in construction, and keenly awaiting first light ...because of course, the clouds rolled in as soon as I assembled my new C100-ED today :)

The Astronomica DK-3 kit that I've motorised the CG-5 with is a jewel, quality brass gears and clutches, nice robust DIN plugs and sockets and near silent operation even at 32x slew speed.

Can't wait to see what new delights await :D

Dave

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russ

russ

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Excellent choice of drive kit. The DK3 kit is so much better than the Skywatcher dual drive kit. It looks and works like a clone of the Vixen MT1's. Very nice!

And the scope is a real peach too. ED100 is a fantastic choice.

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haitch

haitch

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Excellent choice of drive kit. The DK3 kit is so much better than the Skywatcher dual drive kit. It looks and works like a clone of the Vixen MT1's. Very nice!

And the scope is a real peach too. ED100 is a fantastic choice.

I'll second that on the motors - I have to keep putting my ear next to my mount to convince myself they are still running.

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Tribal-Wolf

Tribal-Wolf

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Just came across this thread, my first real astronomy experiences were with the Astral 500. It was my big brothers and I was about 14 and have been smitten with the skies ever since. It was the first time I saw the rings of Saturn and we found something that we thought was a nebula and looked a bit like erm mickey mouse lol.

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