Quote:
Originally Posted by croweater
Hi Alan, I have been following your posts. Nice bargain you got there. Re the Fraunhofer mount, I guess thats why it's a German equatorial mount. I did not know that. 
Like your reno posts. Interesting to see how these mounts are pit together.
Cheers, Richard |
Thank you, Richard. I see that you have a Parks Optical 8" f/6 Newtonian. How very nice. I have one, too. I'd love to see an image of your own.
When I got my definitive 4" refractor in 2003 or so, I wanted to stave off aperture-fever. I had never owned or observed through a reflector, of any type, before. But I didn't want the 8" at f/6, as I was planning on mounting it upon my Vixen GP-DX, at the time; too long. So, I called Parks one day and asked if they would make me an 8" f/5, and they obliged, and for an extra 22%...
Just as my Vixen mount, it, too, had gone through the conflagration mentioned previously, but flames never reached the OTA, only heat and smoke. I took the fibreglass tube to an auto-body shop and had it painted. I also painted the end-rings, to spruce it up, but the front one in satin or matte. While it was still at the factory, Parks arranged to get a 2" focusser for it, and that's it there, a JMI 2" Crayford.
Unto this day, I have never observed through it.
I've pretty much given up on the idea of placing it on an equatorial, but who knows, now that I have a new mount. Incidentally, that's how Parks went out of business: too many equatorials, and too few Dobson alt-azimuths, within their product-line. Then, on the flip side, I may mount it à la Dobson, of my own construction, or a kit.
By the by, quite a few years later, I was wanting to replace the plastic 1.25" focusser of my Orion 6" f/5 with another of the same size. I then stumbled upon a new old-stock 1.25" Parks focusser, just like the one that would've normally come with my Parks OTA...
But now, I'm reluctant to use it for that telescope. On the right is where, later, I had gotten a low-profile visual-back for it.
Cheers,