docpete
newbie
Reged: 01/18/07
Posts: 3
|
|
Just got ahold of this critter and am trying to find out any info about it. It has an objective of approx. 2" and an eyepiece of approx. 1 1/2" (they aren't marked.) I would guess this was made in the late 1950's after the sputnik thing.
Anyone have any info about it? What's a thing like this worth? Don't think I would sell it though its such a niece piece.
docpete
|
Bonco
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/17/06
Posts: 2170
Loc: Florida
|
|
Nice piece. In the 50's I remember going to a house in Dallas where there were several military surplus scopes set up like this in a driveway. Me thinks they were called apogee scopes. The idea was that the battery of scopes would be looking in an area of the sky for a satellite passing and maybe one or two would make a sighting. I found it very exiting at the time as satellites were a new thing.
Bonco
--------------------
RV6
Meade 2045
6 inch f/4 RFT R. Fagin Optics
TV Genesis
2.4 inch Lafayette Equitorial
3 inch Polarex/Unitron Equitorial
10 inch Zhumell
PST 40mm Solar scope
4 inch F/15 Antares
2.4 inch Unitron Equitorial
Tasco 10K 80mm/1200mm
|
Glassthrower
Vendor - Galactic Stone & Ironworks
Reged: 04/07/05
Posts: 16013
Loc: Kuiper Belt
|
|
Hi Docpete and welcome to Cloudy Nights. 
That is an interesting piece you have there. I have a big collection of older S&T magazines that have many old Edmund advertisements in them. I don't recall ever seeing this particular item. Very cool.
It appears to operate on a "sky window" principle. A first surface mirror on a horizontal plane to the sky and a downward looking eyepiece centered on the mirror. Might get dew-prone under some conditions. I bet you could make an interesting finder scope out of it.....
Thanks for sharing and clear dark skies,
MikeG
--------------------
Michael Gilmer - Member of the Meteoritical Society & Collector of Falling Stars.
Galactic Stone & Ironworks - Meteorites, Moon Rocks, Mars Rocks, & Trinitite.
|
rutherfordt
super member
Reged: 05/07/06
Posts: 158
Loc: Blountville, Tennessee USA
|
|
Here are a couple of pictures from the late 50's showing a typical MOONWATCH setup using this very telescope. This is sort of how the astronomy club of which I am currently president (Bristol Astronomy Club) got its start. We still have a couple of these scopes at the observatory-- I don't know where the others got to.
http://www.bristolastronomy.org/files/Images/ClubHistory/MoonWatch.jpg
http://www.bristolastronomy.org/files/Images/ClubHistory/MoonWatchApril031958.jpg
--------------------
Tom Rutherford
10-inch f/6 Homemade Dobsonian (Cave mirror)
8-inch f/6 Homemade Dobsonian
6-inch f/5 Meade SN6
6-inch f/10 Celestron C6
5.5-inch f/3.6 Celestron Comet Catcher
66mm f/6 WO Petzval
2-inch f/15 Nippon Kogaku (my first telescope)
assorted unassembled pieces and parts
|
docpete
newbie
Reged: 01/18/07
Posts: 3
|
|
Very cool pics rutherfordt! Thanks alot for the neat info all!
docpete
|
Bruce MacDonald
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/12/06
Posts: 1078
Loc: Devizes, Wiltshire, UK
|
|
What a fascinating little thread.
I am a satellite observer and it is interesting to see a "typical" Moonwatch observing setup from I guess the early 1960s. My guess is that each telescope is set up at different altitudes to get a fix on the object passing over. If an observer sees the sat through his FOV, this would give an altitude reading and an azimuth reading. Add a stopwatch timing and you can calculate an orbit if you have a few observations like this. I suppose it had to be done like this in the days before orbital elements were available via the internet or BBS, and before official sources were set up to distribute elements to observers which was the system when I first became interested in satellite observing in 1981.
Don't turn it into a finder - this looks like a piece of history, keep it in original condition.
A while back there was a similar thread on a different satellite scope which was made in Japan. It seems that there were a lot of these 2" scopes produced around the start of the Space Age of different designs to complement the old ex-military "elbow telescopes".
--------------------
Bruce MacDonald
Devizes, Wiltshire, UK
Per Mare Per Terras
Viz Top Tip: Don't waste money buying expensive binoculars. Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.
|
Bonco
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/17/06
Posts: 2170
Loc: Florida
|
|
Very interesting pictures which is very similar to what I witnessed years ago in Dallas. The only difference was they were using tables. You can deduce from the pictures that they did multible observations from the fixed platforms installed at the observing site. And Now I remember the term "Moonwatch".
Thanks Bonco
--------------------
RV6
Meade 2045
6 inch f/4 RFT R. Fagin Optics
TV Genesis
2.4 inch Lafayette Equitorial
3 inch Polarex/Unitron Equitorial
10 inch Zhumell
PST 40mm Solar scope
4 inch F/15 Antares
2.4 inch Unitron Equitorial
Tasco 10K 80mm/1200mm
|
NightSkyGuy
newbie
Reged: 12/12/06
Posts: 4
|
|
docpete...
that is a historic scope, sold during the early days of artificial satellites to hundreds to amateur trackers worldwide. Edmund charged $49.50 for it. yours appears to be in great shape -- by chance are you anywhere in the Boston area? I'd like to see it up close.
--------------------
Kelly Beatty
Senior Contributing Editor
SKY & TELESCOPE
617-416-9991
SkyandTelescope.com
|
twhite
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/28/06
Posts: 1360
Loc: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, USA
|
|
Bruce -- you're right; we had some threads about this type of scope before:
Moonwatch Telescope thread
Elbow Telescope thread
--------------------
Tony White
President, Astronomy Club of Tulsa
---
18" f/4.5 Pegasus/homebuilt dob
TMB 152 - TMB 105 - AP 105EDF - Antares Elite 105/1500 - Unitron 102/1500 - Celestron SP-C102F - Unitron 131-C - Unitron 140 - Brandon 80 f/6 - Coronado MaxScope 60 0.5A - and more...
Celestron Ultima 11, Orion Optics OMC-140, Celestron CometCatcher
AP1200GTO - AP400GTO - Vixen GP - DiscMount DM-6 -Lapides Tak Teegul - and more...
Garrett GT100-45, Celestron 11x80, Eagle Optics 10x50ED, Celestron 6.5x44ED
|
Steve1127
newbie
Reged: 03/25/08
Posts: 1
|
|
If you would like to sell it I would be interested. I no the Franklin Institute in Philly back In the 60s had a group that used to do Satellite observations. They had quite a few. I got one from a friend that worked there, and have since lost it. I used the eye-piece out of it. I made a adapter. The eye-piece was a Erfle I think 50mm. Let me know, Thanks Steve
|
RRavneberg
professor emeritus
Reged: 12/02/05
Posts: 634
Loc: Columbus, OH
|
|
The Edmund scope is a 5.5x scope with a 12-degree FOV. They were probably cobbed together by Edmund from their surplus supply of M-17 elbow telescope objectives and surplus 32mm eyepieces (from tank periscopes, I believe). The scopes sold for around $49.50, if I recall.
It's a great little scope. I used mine for general summer evening gazing at a picnic table and later mounted it as a finder on my 6" (all this was back in the 1960s).
The eyepiece originally had a rubber eyecup, which appears to be missing in the image at the beginning of this thread.
Here's the one I had (with a new coat of paint to match my 6" scope from back when).
--------------------
Ron Ravneberg
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
[Re: 