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Old 18-12-2015, 11:51 AM
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Satchmo
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,883
I guess you need to define classic from the perspective of classic quality or classic looks.

I used to own a `classic' - a Unitron 4" F15 - an older one with counterweight bar and three massive cases. I parted with it for the same reason that Vixen / Celestron killed Unitron company because it would not move with the times and start producing apo refractors - shorter colour free refrractors that the market was ready for .

The telescope was unweildy , inconvenient to use- it took my 30 minutes to set up and was hard to move around the yard The tripod and fork mount were massive . The contrast was a little poor with the fairly faded Mag flouride coatings . The field of view was narrow and the images fairly dim for deep sky viewing . At powers needed for serious lunar and planetary viewing such as X200 the purple colour fringing was becoming objectionable to me . The 1" eyepieces had a narrow field and lacked any contrast .

I borrowed a newly released 80mm F9 Vixen Flourite refractor to compare side by side and the views of the Moon and Planets and deep sky objects blew me away - crisp , colour free and contrasty . It was so easy to use and much more stable on its much smaller tripod If I had been older and wealthier I would have kept the Unitron as a display scope which would have got my pulse going everytime I laid eyes on it , because owning such a scope was stuff of my boyhood dreams .

Anyway I bought the flourite - stuck the Unitron in the trading post and got $400 for it ( 30 years ago ) and never looked back . It was certainly a `classic' but only from the rose coloured views of my boyhood dreams - not from a later perspective of the evolution of amateur telescopes .
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