31 replies to this topic

[jgraham]

There’s not a lot to adjust and learning how to maintain proper collimation is a valuable skill. It’s also fairly quick and easy once you see how it is done. It would be helpful to have someone familiar with these older scopes to check it out. They often need a little maintenance such was regressing the focuser and baffle slide and making sure that the cork gaskets and shims are snug and in good condition. You might check with a local astronomy club. If there’s no help there then you might try contacting Celestron. I have heard a few examples where they have refurbed older scopes.

 

Welcome to Cloudy Nights!

[davidmcgo]

Nowadays I would not trust them to know anything about the vintage scopes.  If you need adjustments or help, I would chat with Stellarvision in Tucson or ask around in your local club.  There isn’t much to do or go wrong other than dried old grease or collimation if it has been kept clean and dry.

 

They are really sweet and I really like the fork mount.  I am kind of an outlier in that regard.  I hate go to and all automatic everything.  I use a Suunto Tandem for polar alignment when I set up and get good accuracy with my setting scurf.es getting within finder field over most of the sky and can fine tune from there by calibrating on nearby stuff I know the coordinates of.

 

Dave

Hi folks, I am a new owner of an old orange tube, it only took 41 years to get one but I have been dreaming of getting one for years.  Have I read right? Can I send this to Celestron to be checked out and adjusted?

[Neptune]

Not sure how many they are out there. Friend bought a mint 1982 C11 with the worst optics i ever saw in a SCT.  I know they all  vary from bad to very sharp. If you have a sharp one then keep it.  I would love to find a super sharp C11.  The U11 was under mounted .  

What color was the tube, orange or black?

 

David

[CHASLX200]

What color was the tube, orange or black?

 

David

Orange and the worst SCT i ever looked thru.

[VictorMG]

Some celestrons are dog's,  others are not. Any blue and white has incredible optics. Tricolors are great also. The older sand cast are great. The orange c-11, in early 80's was great. Once Halley's Comet was arriving everyone wanted a telescope,  so celestron 's quality control and optical tooling went south. This is the primary reason, i discovered some are good and others are not. 

 

There's a significant noticeable difference in the good optics and poor optics, and manufacturing times have everything to do with it. I've never seen a blue and white with poor optics, or a tricolor or sand cast. Collimation has nothing to do with it. Collimation is easy to fix, but bad optics are impossible to collimate correctly. Good optics alway magnify high, but bad optics never will magnify high, and image breaks down, even at medium magnification in bad optics. 

Edited by VictorMG, 05 February 2025 - 06:27 PM.

[CHASLX200]

The C11 i was talking about was a 1982 Orange.

[starman876]

Some celestrons are dog's,  others are not. Any blue and white has incredible optics. Tricolors are great also. The older sand cast are great. The orange c-11, in early 80's was great. Once Halley's Comet was arriving everyone wanted a telescope,  so celestron 's quality control and optical tooling went south. This is the primary reason, i discovered some are good and others are not. 

 

There's a significant noticeable difference in the good optics and poor optics, and manufacturing times have everything to do with it. I've never seen a blue and white with poor optics, or a tricolor or sand cast. Collimation has nothing to do with it. Collimation is easy to fix, but bad optics are impossible to collimate correctly. Good optics alway magnify high, but bad optics never will magnify high, and image breaks down, even at medium magnification in bad optics. 

Got to love the blue and white version.  Truly beautiful scope