I have almost this identical vintage scope (70s or 80s) which I bought direct from Japan last year. Mine is in mint condition and included many somewhat unusual accessories, like a pretty cool Carton labeled lens cleaning cloth. Carton was one of the few telescope companies in Japan that made their own optics (for a while) rather than just having someone else manufacture the scope and just labeling it as so many companies did. Your scope, like mine, is from the period when they produced very high quality stuff, definitely a cut above the typical Tasco department store fare. It looks like your objective needs cleaning so you should look into the proper way to do that. It’s an air spaced achromat so very simple to disassemble and clean. The other key thing is to forget about the supplied eyepieces however well made they may be and get an adapter to fit 1.25 eyepieces. This will make a dramatic improvement in the views. The mount is made to operate in equatorial mode rather than racked all the way over in a quasi alt az configuration as shown so you should adjust it for equatorial operation. The viewfinder eyepiece has the best crosshairs you will ever see (a small circle inside of crosshairs) and can be unscrewed to use as a regular .965 eyepiece. The f15 focal ratio means the scope should largely be free of false color so views of the planets and the moon should be quite nice and sharp. Feel free to PM me if you want to know more.
Lovely looking set up, looks immaculate. That's nice to hear about these Cartons, they seem to be well regarded.
I've ordered the Vixen adapter to allow the use of 1.25" eyepieces etc. I have the same back projection arm, screen etc and an inverting eyepiece adapter to flip the image view, plus some other bits and bobs, and a cleaning bag (never opened)
I removed the lens cell, indexed both lenses with a marker and cleaned the outer surfaces, but I didn't separate the lenses as they appear pretty clean internally. The foil spacers are in OK condition and I didn't want to risk damaging them or messing up any fine tuning
I dialed in the viewfinder, it's very good. Crystal clear and a sharply defined cross and circle.
About the mount:
You seem to have the same mount as mine. I've done a big google search to see if I can find any guides on maintenance or disassembly, but drawn a blank, so I'm hoping somebody can help here
I removed the cover from the Dec worm box (see below) and this was straightforward, It's not a full 360 degree toothed wheel. The worm acts on a forked arm and has a limited range of travel in Dec. I've cleaned it and added some PTFE grease:
Dec Worm gearbox (above)
The RA axis looks more complicated and I'm assuming that this has a 360 degree toothed wheel driven by the worm gear
There's a bunch of screws in this box, I assume some act on the worm to adjust any clearance and backlash, but I'm wary of messing around here unless I know what I am doing
View underneath RA onto worm box (counterweight bar removed)
I'd be grateful if anybody can advise on this.. as to what screws do what, and which ones to remove to access the worm
Edited by 900SL, 07 January 2025 - 11:34 AM.