View Single Post
  #3  
Old 22-09-2010, 10:16 PM
Blue Skies's Avatar
Blue Skies (Jacquie)
It's about time

Blue Skies is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 1,221
Sadly, Max is kind of right, there. Its not that easy to 'fix' or replace the glass lenses in an old refractor. As I learnt it, you can't reverse-engineer a refractor objective as to do that you have to know the refractive index of the glass (individual to each batch of glass made) and then you need to find another batch with the same refractive index - near impossible. You've either got to live with the chipped glass or just make it a museum piece.

Or....

Just reading that again, I'm wondering if what you're calling 'lenses' we would normally call eyepieces. (A lens is a shaped disc of glass that bends light at a certain angle. Please note that a telescope can have lenses in many different places! There are usually two in the primary objective, the spotter scope will have a few and several in each eyepiece.) If that is the case, you might still stuck, as it will depend on what size the barrel is - is the internal diameter of the focuser around 0.96 inches? If so then you should be able to find some of those either new or second hand - just place a wanted ad in the classifieds here and there should be several offers of help. If the eyepieces were specific to the telescope, as can happen with the older ones, you might be stuck.

To help us to help you, it would be great to show us some photos of the scope, and to point out which bits are missing - hope you've photoshop or the like and can scribble lines over the photo to indicate the places that need help. This should cut through some of the terminology.

As encouragement, though, I love pulling old scopes apart and restoring them, too. It's a great learning exercise and I hope to learn a bit more in the future, so if you're really keen, go for it. There are plenty of people here that can help with options, but we need some info on the scope at the moment.
Reply With Quote