Okayyyy. The lady that it was made for had it for a few years. I believe the whole dob might be between 5 or 10 years old, maybe less, can't be certain. I do recognize older school parts, including the basic nature of the cast primary. Apparently the lady's friend had all kinds of scope parts for a rather long time doing this stuff as a side line. The lady was in school for astronomy, physics, engineering, ....and such. Her boyfriend was college age. She recently graduated and became a certified Astrophysicist. She and her boyfriend split up cordially. Her boyfriend had just bought her a new full Celestron CAT set up just before they split up. She took the secondary glass out of the spider and left the rest of the complete dob behind. Her boyfriend asked her about the carcass and she said he could just sell it or...whatever. He put it up for $100 miss labeled as an 8". It was miss labeled by size since he was going by pure estimate, he was a fairly casual poster. I corrected him on the size so he could change the ad for a while. I am why he changed the ad and stated both the primary size and upper cage size. I wasn't out to take advantage of him. By then I had my foot in the door and his responses still weren't great so I got it. Everything about meeting the boyfriend, the location, the situation, his story, other stuff there, it all matched up and felt right. Now I'm feeling I did post this scope in the Classics forum earlier somewhere, probably a little different story if I did but I'm doing the best I can.
My computer date on the original ad screen shot is Aug. 2024. That might have changed as I used the picture, not sure how that end works. I don't think I've had if for a year. I'm positive the mirror is older school appropriate for this forum. I've seen a LOT of old school primaries and this rings too strongly that way, always did, along with other major scope parts. The dob in turn has newer brackets and such in the construction.
I think were both in the same limbo boat with a vintage production mirror from the same source. Ain't that the 'pile'! Apparently the lady adored the dob, and was still local. I always thought she would come out of the woodwork if I posted the finish scope with my hindsight type rebuilds, and got it public through some astronomy venues (like CN). I took all my pictures when I got the scope, and they are all Aug. 2024 so that is probably about when I got it. Here is the screen shot of the original ad, and at my place. I also engineered and built that custom Nashbar in the background, a lot of fun with no gear fear on length. It's triple cored with sleeved aircraft tubing.
Edited by apfever, 23 April 2025 - 10:23 PM.
