Well look what I got from Cash Converters on saturday , This sweet thing ..
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Its a Tasco , model , 11T , 450 power , 114mm f/900 Newtonion , whew ! , what a mouthfull .
But seriously I payed $40 for it and what a state the poor thing was in , for a start the covers looked like they had not been fitted for years , the mirrors were filthy , cobwebs in the tube
, missing screws every where , but I could see the potential .
I got this for a young friend just starting out in astronomy , you all know how it is ,, broke and not much chance of getting anything soon ..
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Anyway I invited him over on saturday arvo and over a few beers we stripped her down , cleaned all the spider webs out , blasted the mirrors under the tap and started soaking them in a diluted sunlight soap and water mix .
Tony played with the EQ2 mount it came with but it has major problems inside eg. damaged shafts so it will never run smooth , poor Tony was broken
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But , I have a Meade LX500 mount in the cupboard , young fella ..
so away we went adapting it to the tripod and tube assembly , and a few holes drilled and tapped and a few bolts and the empty tube was mounted on a suprisingly sturdy set up , cool
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Fast forward to last night , Tony came around and together we blow dried the mirrors , inspected them , which came out very well considering the state they were in
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I got tony to reassemble them into there cells ( which are very well made ) and helped him columinate them .
Now the fun beguins ..
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I only have my 2 off .965 Zeiss eyepieces from my Teleminator a 16mm and 25mm ( 56x and 36x ) and so out we went , the moon was awsome for a $40 scope , good detail and contrast impressive !
acrux was easily split , and stars were nice round balls and lots of other objects seen , that LX500 mount is a great mount for this OTA , woaw !
Tony wanted it there and then , but no !! my Zeiss eyepieces stay with me
"young fella" , so we went online and ordered a 25mm and 9mm Kelners ( 36x and 100x ) from Claude at AEC , $25 each in the .965 inch size , they will be here in a few days
poor young Tony is bursting , I hope he can wait that long
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So for the princely sum of $90 we have another budding amateur astronomer in our midst ,, cool
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Hope you all enjoy this as much as I have , I love helping young people on there way in our great hobby .
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Brian.