Telescope Articles Archives

William Optics Star 71 Astrograph First Impressions

My first impression is excellent.  The WO Star 71 has a wide, well illuminated, flat field of view, exactly what I was looking for. 

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How To Avoid The Agony When Buying Your First Telescope

Buying your first telescope can quickly become a daunting task when faced with so many choices and unfamiliar terms. Hopefully this article simplifies the process a bit for you.

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The South Cave Collimator System

The story starts back in April 2006 when the black plastic front cover of my 8” Wise Newtonian telescope had developed a crack, so I

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A Super Altazimuth Mount

Leonard, who has won several merit awards at Riverside Telescope Makers Convention, offered to build me the mount a little over a year ago

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Keep On Buying

I've had seven telescopes so far, and by far the absolute best with ease of operation, quick mounting , perfectly clear and bright optics was the Celestron CPC1100

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My Telescopes

I've owned everything from a forl mounted C-14 with a 5 & 8" Celestron Schmidt Camera mounted on top, to a C-90 spotting scope

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My "First Telescope": the Great Lick Refractor

When I was 12, a friend brought a telescope catalog to school. It was from Celestron. It was the first time I'd ever heard of a Schmidt-Cassegrain. I borrowed it, kept it for a couple of weeks, read it cover to cover until I had large swaths of it memorized.

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A New Refractor Concept: "The Wall Hypochromatic Refractor"

During research into retrofocally corrected refractor systems, I noted an effect during experiments with an optical bench cum telescope apparatus, that is, when the correcting flint element was removed from the train, the image recovery lenses still formed a back focus image which was smaller but seemed well corrected for colour, in fact it was a better correction than was being had with the flint lens in situ for that particular array

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Broke Back Solutions

I'm old, weak and broken. Here is my solution to easy portability

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My Telescope Building Adventure Continues

First, I would like to thank Cloudy Nights for offering to post my musings on telescope building on their excellent website

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A Case for GOTO

A case for GOTO

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Method to Improve Tracking of Celestron NexStar

A New Method to Improve the Tracking of Celestron Nexstar

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20" Dob Survival Story

Raging Wind: A 20" Obsession Survival Story

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What Size Solid tube Dob Should You Buy?

Perhaps one of the most common questions asked by new astronomers (right after: which first telescope should I get?) is: which of the solid tube Dobs should I get?

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Colorful Double Stars for the ST80

The first on this list is Albireo (3.1,5.1) in Cygnus. I like this nice double at about 12X. I find the separation a bit much at about 25X to 30X which is the lowest power of many refractors and SCT scopes.

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A Different Way to Get There

At every turn these days we are seeing the impact of high quality, inexpensive electronics on our hobby. I believe that it could be argued that the application that has had the largest impact in terms of making the hobby accessible to many more people is the

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6” f/8 Motorized Dob for Lunar/Planetary Viewing

This telescope is dedicated to visual observations on the moon and planets, undertaken from my balcony under suburban skies (limiting magnitude about 4.5). Light weight, portability or tracking accuracy compatible with astrophotography were not design requirements.

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William Optics Zenithstar 80

I have owned several shorttube telescopes in the past, so testing the newborn child in the William Optics-family was a nice task… After a few years of observing without a portable scope to fill in the hours before moonrise or short moments of cloudless evenings, I deciced to buy another travel companion…

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So Why a Truss Dobsonian?

Dobsonian telescopes (commonly referred to as “Dobs”) are a common sight these days. Most of us know that they are conventional Newtonian reflectors on a novel, simplified altitude/azimuth mounting system. Many of us are aware that the basic design is credited to John Dobson. Some of us remember that Mr. Dobson’s concept was a “people’s telescope” - one that could be put together at practically no cost using salvaged materials and unskilled labor. He felt

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Misadventures In Telescope Building

I confess. I have had a thing for buying telescopes. My father did cars--I have done telescopes. Over the course of several years I have purchased, sold, bought, and traded at least thirteen different telescopes. I have owned smaller high end refractors and an excellent five inch f15 achromatic refractor. I have owned quality reflectors like a ten inch Portaball and an eight inch Portaball. The list goes on. And yes, I lost money on almost every sale. But to keep things in perspective, I lost much more in my investments over the same time without the fun!

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Mak Franken II: The Creation of a Chimera*

This all started after I unpacked my long dormant Celestron "Super C8 Plus", only to find that its secondary mirror "special" coating had gone bad with the passage of time. I had last used the beastie in the early 1990's. It was purchased in the mid-1980's. I was lucky, the optics had been good, as opposed to many SCT's of that vintage I hear. I had always thought the C8 was too much tube for it anyway, vibration-wise. And, balancing with varied loads... When I was a little kid I was allowed to play with a large scope at a local society's observatory. It had a might-vibrate-if-a-truck hit-the-pier mounting. Guess it kinda prejudiced me at an impressionable age. I decided to us the fork/mount/tripod with another OTA. But with what, and why?

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Experiences with 2 Short tube Refractors

At the most recent of the Highlands Astronomical Societys' Equipment Nights, I was very happy to see, fully set up just a few feet along from my 127mm Maksutov, one of my first telescopes. It was a Konus Vista 80mm short tube refractor. It was mounted on the same photo tripod that I included when I sold it to its current owner, and even came out of the same foam lined aluminium carry case that I also parted company with about three years ago. Naturally I went over and inspected the little yellow scope, remembering the great

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Story of Jason 60mm Refractor

One day I went to a Pawn shop to find a good pair of Binocular and I saw a refractor. I asked the sales person that how much he is asking for. He said that he will sell it for $50.00 but we negotiate on $35.00 so I bought this "TINY" refractor just to display in my living room. When I took it home I inspected the scope and found out that the optics are not really aligned and dirty so I cleaned and aligned the telescope. This is a 60 mm with an effective focal length of 700mm (f/11)and made in Japan. The Tripod was very light and I could not use the power no more then 45x so I mounted on my trusted SLICK 300DX tripod which can hold easily about 10 pound load.

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What Can you see for $500? - 4 Telescopes Compared

The telescopes reviewed here have all received favorable comment in magazines or on the Internet: The Meade ETX90, the Celestron C102HD refractor, the Celestron G5 SCT, and a 10 inch Dobsonian reflector. The 10 inch Dobsonian belongs to the Eugene Astronomical Society, I purchased the C102HD and the G5 second hand on Astromart, and the ETX90RA was purchased at a local camera store.

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Tele Vue Pronto and the "Living Star Atlas"

The Pronto comes with a padded carrying bag for storage. The bag features a shoulder strap and could easily be carry-on luggage for astronomy vacations. The bag is also useful for cold-weather astronomy because it prevents the scope from dewing up when brought in from the outside.

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