A few hrs on Jupe with the Carton 60mm FL1000

[AndyH]

Popped out at 6pm this evening to have a look at Jupiter.

Brought out my Carton 60mm F16.7 refractor and helix-mfg 'grab n go' alt/az mount(tiny, fits in the palm of my hand). I've got a home made pillar made out of 3" tube with welded on feet that I leave in the back garden. Used a Tal 25mm Plossl(40x) and Speers MkI 5-8mm zoom(125x-200x).

My astro stuff is always kept in a cool back bedroom, so cooldown is usually pretty quick. I spent that time, lining up my new 50mm finder n bracket with the scope.

I noticed that the seeing could be pretty decent as there was minimal star twinkling, but transparecy was poor.

Put the speers ep in straight away and adjusted it to the 8mm/125x setting. Lined up Jupe & moons in the crosshairs of the finder and took a gander at the gas giant. I find with this scope having a long/slow focal ratio it's very easy to find focus. No need for tiny tweaks to get it bang on. Very impressive view. Scope was defo cooled and the view was steady with zero false colour and banding easily seen on the disc. I decided to crank the mag up a bit to about 6mm/167x. Quite lovely, with no image breakdown, which once again proves to me what a superb 60mm lens this is. Both the main north and south dark bands were easily seen, with another more northerly dark band noticable especially when the air/seeing became rock steady for short bursts. Below the main southern band, a dark feature could be made out but again only when the seeing steadied. Wasn't a full dark band but seemed to be as if both ends had been rubbed out as in a drawing. Spent about 1.5-2 hours studying the disc. Isn't it amazing how more and more detail pops out the longer you spend on a target? Quite marvelous what this tiny scope can see.

Since I'm just recovering from a bad cold and wicked cough, I decided not to push my luck.....especially as I had run out of fishermans friends. Never fear, oh dodgy throat, the last half of a bottle of Dow's 1989 vintage port awaits....yum.

So a short but very sweet session. The Carton really is a cracking grab n go scope. Cools really quickly and has a tack sharp doublet lens. Punches way above it's size. Stars are text book beautiful. Not to forget the pocket battleship alt/az mount. Never ceases to amaze. Works smoothly at up to 200x.

Cheers,

Andy:)

[F15Rules]

Nice report Andy :-)..certainly love the sound of that Carton, it sounds like a little cracker!

I remember seeing a Carton 4" F15 advertised in a catalogue in the 80's, it looked utterly beautiful, and even then was carrying an RRP of around £795 on a GEM as I recall. Doubt that it found many takers at those prices, imagine if one came up second hand now! We'd maybe have a queue of us oldies after it..

Hope you get fully recoved from the lergy soon mate.

cheers

Dave

[AndyH]

Hi Dave.

Am loving this wee scope.

Only the lens in cell are still available for the big Carton 4" F13's. There's been continuing updates on the builds over on cloudy nights, which you may have noticed.

The vintage port helped me on the way to recovery

Andy.