Man the Oddie was just unbelievable in good seeing, one Mars opposition back in around 1998 (?) it looked like a Damien Peach photo, even my 6 year old son who was with us that night was making out all the major surface details.
I first used the Oddie in early 1984 as a 16 Yr old, my mate Attila had been using it for a year previously as part of the ACT college access (was that how you accessed it too?) including the Zeiss camera. We used the Oddie
as a guide scope for our C5 and Cold Camera
....ah, sigh...those were the days
Definitely a great scope for a public observatory, if you had a housing large enough of course.
Mike
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone
Hehe... I remember that 16" well, Mike... it was at the back of the Tradies Club in Dickson.
When it opened I think half of CAS were wondering WTF ? while the other half were laughing at the waste of putting a telescope like that in that awful location. I walked away shaking my head in disbelief when it opened.
After restoring its predecessor (Colonel Oddie had a 4.5" Cooke first, on a very beautiful mount which was originally used to do the site survey leading to the selection of Stromlo for an observatory), subsequently I had its big brother (the 9" Oddie at Stromlo) to myself one night a week, for several years before you. Both were great examples of what a refractor could do, and it is little wonder it is being replaced with a slightly smaller and faster APO.
The trouble is, nobody makes 'scopes like that as a "commercial off-the-shelf" item - they're all one-offs built to order. Even in Oddies day.
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