My first telescope was the Celestron 60AZ. I've always been into astronomy and space growing up because of my dad and brother. I contemplated the thought of buying a telescope to expand my interest. At the time when Dick Smith was around I used to eye off the Celestron telescopes they used to sell. There was the 60AZ, 114AZ and the 130EQ . Every time I went to the store I had a look at them but never purchased one. I think I was between 16 and 20 years old.
The interest of telescopes peaked in 2011 and finally decided to buy one. I found a used Celestron 60AZ on eBay for around $60. I didn't want to spend much money as I wanted something cheap incase I didn't like the hobby. I remember looking at the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter for the first time through the telescope and it was literally out of this world! It was the coolest thing I ever saw.
After that one purchase I decided that I absolutely loved the hobby and decided to take it to the next level. I quickly sold that scope and purchased a much better one with go to capabilities (130SLT).
7 years later and many scopes, accessories and cameras over the years I can safely say this is the most rewarding hobby I have!
As a kid I got a toy telescope and used it to look at the moon, i always had a fascination with Telescopes. Unfortunately The cost and lack of money meant I didn't do anything till my 40's when Ebay meant buying from overseas made the hobby more appealing. I purchased a small mak 90 from Seben then progressed from there with a c8 then a 127 refractor from north group right up to my current setup a c9.25 and my orion ed80.
Costly hobby and thanks to this forum very rewarding.
One can only think how much more appealing the hobby would be for the young if it wasnt so expensive and the price gouging we encounter in Australia wasn't so prevalent.
Nice topic Stefan, thanks for bringing it up. I'm interested to see how others had wandered into this hobby too.
I've been keen in in Astronomy, space travel and rocketry since I can remember. As a primary school kid in the 80's I remember Voyager 2 meeting one planet after the next. I'd record the Quantum episodes in ABC, and re-watch them occasionally. It was riveting (even as a 8 yr old), seeing Andrew Prentice' (did I remember that name right?) predictions of the next planet that Voyager 2 would encounter. They'd replay what he said years previous, when the answers started rolling in.
Fast forward nearly 30 years (2017), and Mum says she wants a telescope for her 70th Bday. Cool... Paid off an AstroFi from Bintel, and brought it home to her. 6 Months later, and a new AZ3-R mount to simpli-Fy the Astro-Fi, she still hasn't touched it.
Whilst saving for the above, I mentioned this to my neighbour, who had an old Bushnel Northstar Newt sitting in his shed. He passed it to me, and I cleaned it up. The linked review is very kind to this scope - it's wobblier than Michael J. Fox. Having never touched a telescope in my life, there was much reading to be done. Needless to say, the IIS articles were amazing. I bought a plossl set from Bintel, and got busy. That was September 2017, and the weather was clear every night for months. All the planets were near Zenith early in the night. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the hobby.
Since then the IIS Classifieds have been a great source for needed (wanted?) gear. An 80mm refractor, and C6 on a Nextar mount joined the collection. Sadly, I have no time for joining clubs, etc (I'm sure they're champs, but I just can't get out). And only my 3 year old son is interested in the family (as much as a grommet can be). So it's a fairly solitary thing. Anyone else find that too?
Last edited by AndyG; 31-03-2018 at 11:14 PM.
Reason: kant spll..
I got that little Tasco 3T for Xmas in the 70's and loved it. I always wished it was the larger 4.5" model, but the 3" was an enormous stretch for my parents financially so I had to make do; It was UKP100 back then.
A lot of folk say that these little toy instruments are a waste of money but I would disagree. Even with this diminutive instrument I could see detail on the planets - GRS and Cassini division were no problem, one or two galaxies and of course the great Orion nebula. The moon was fabulous.
Maybe I have over compensated with my scope collection in middle age, but I still cherish this little fella
Oh, and amazingly, 40 years later the coatings are still good
My first scope was a Broadhurst, Clarkson and Fuller 8 3/4" reflector on a heavy, cast iron mount. It had a VW Beetle wiper motor as the RA drive!
My amazing mum and dad paid 400 quid for it in 1984!
I will never forget the generosity of that buy. I spent hours with it in north Lancashire. It had a fantastic optics but the mount wasn't flash. It is still in their garage wrapped up.
Telescope manufacture has come on leaps and bounds in a short space of time.
My first scope was a Broadhurst, Clarkson and Fuller 8 3/4" reflector on a heavy, cast iron mount. It had a VW Beetle wiper motor as the RA drive!
My amazing mum and dad paid 400 quid for it in 1984.
My second scope was a BC&F 6" f8 in 1981 (UKP 200). The thing was a monster so I can only imagine what yours was like. Nothing as fancy as a drive for my scope!!
I wonder how our scopes would stack up against modern equivalents?
With regard to my BC&F 6", I'd keep the primary and chuck the rest out. Then I'd chuck the primary out too because I don't bother with Newtonians below 20" anymore
I got my first scope in 1985, scopes were quite expensive then and I think most of the larger newts were hand made. I remember looking through the tasco catalogues of the time, shops that sold scopes were few and far between.
I had my first decent paying job and money to spend and those tasco's just weren't big enough. I eventually found a small scope shop in the suburbs and wow there was my scope on display in the window. It was a second hand 8" f6 cave optical reflector with tube rotation rings, RA motor drive and portable pier mount. $1200 later and the scope was mine.
Still got that scope today and it's still fully functional. I did replace the mirrors a couple of years ago, but have kept the originals, I'll get them re coated one day. I still use it for visual and its great for school outreach nights with it's tube rotation rings and motor drive.
I did use it for astrophotography for a while and it's ok for up to 30sec exposures but found it was hard to regulate the 240v motor's speed for accurate tracking.
Location: '34 South' Young Hilltops LGA, Australia
Posts: 1,481
a 6"f7 newtonian. Started Christmas 1978. Bought a mirror grinding kit from Astro-Optical in Brisbane. Over the next 2 years, I ground and polished the mirror, poured and cast the aluminium castings for the mount, learned to use lathes and machined the parts all under the expert tutelage of the late Cliff Duncan, ATM extraordinaire. First light August 1980.
Home made refractor for comet kohoutek in 1973, which was expected to be big post perihelion, but was instead vaporised by the sun and a total non-event here. Objective was a surplus doublet from binoculars and I adapted my microscope eyepiece to serve as the eyepiece, which worked well enough at about 12X from memory.
Soon after found the Texerau book and ground & polished a 4” f/5 using an Astro Optics kit, this made a shoebox scope - literally, it tucked under one arm for observing at 20X, no mount required.
Mine was a crappy 60mm tasco achro The tube was metal and the eyepieces were actual glass, not like the crap you can see these days, but it was still not a great scope. So much chromatic aberration and so little aperture. But I did spend many, many hours with that scope scaring the Milkman at 3 in the morning. But eventually I got frostrated with all the things I couldn't see, and not having the $$$ for an upgrade, I found other things to fill my time. For my 30th birthday my wife bought me an 8" as a present. We're not together anymore (the wife, or that particular scope) but it was one of the best presents ever and the beginning of reinvigorating my love of the stars. I used that 8" newt to show the kids at my local primary school the transit of Venus.
Mine was a crappy 60mm tasco achro The tube was metal and the eyepieces were actual glass, not like the crap you can see these days, but it was still not a great scope. So much chromatic aberration and so little aperture. But I did spend many, many hours with that scope scaring the Milkman at 3 in the morning. But eventually I got frostrated with all the things I couldn't see, and not having the $$$ for an upgrade, I found other things to fill my time. For my 30th birthday my wife bought me an 8" as a present. We're not together anymore (the wife, or that particular scope) but it was one of the best presents ever and the beginning of reinvigorating my love of the stars. I used that 8" newt to show the kids at my local primary school the transit of Venus.
Sorry yours was 'crappy' mine was a fine scope even today fantastic lens great focuser and an aluminium tube I loved the extension tube like a duel focuser The Tasco 7TE- 5 was made by Royal Astro a Japanese maker that made fine optical instruments, I still have its bigger brother the 10TE which I still use 50x per inch was quite easy to achieve, I used to have a 80 mm WO APO (more for AP) but the Tasco 10TE was better for visual
And no CA even on Venus !
Last edited by Rkonrad; 03-04-2018 at 03:01 AM.
Reason: Left out the ca on Venus
Mine, a Tak FS60C, was a fairly recent acquisition (2011), along with a 13T6 and a 3.5T6 Nagler, and the FC76 unit 3 years later - recent because I had been enjoying astronomy for 30 years by that stage. Before that it was club scopes and borrowed ones, up to 18". That allowed a pretty good idea what I wanted (or didn't want). Also, because of the club environment, I wasn't exposed to any unqualified "apitcha rulz" claims. None of that "you need a certain aperture x to really enjoy the night sky" business. Instead, I had to see for myself what I could and could not expect from a certain aperture and weigh that against other factors such as portability. The result is a scope that has been, and is likely to remain, my most used telescope.
My first telescope was a Tasco 4.5" reflector on a manual EQ mount bought from Grace Bros (I think) maybe 25 years ago. It came with 2 x 0.96" eyepieces and not much else. I had no idea how to line up the finder with the scope so fussed around and managed to point it all at the brightest star that I could find one early evening. It turned out to be Saturn. As you can imagine, I was immediately hooked from that point until now.
Brings back memories!
Recently bought a refractor from a fellow IIS member. Turns out we both started out much the same way...in my case, with a cannibalised objective lens from a pair of Woolies reading glasses, drainpipe for a tube, and an EP borrowed from a microscope used in the country schoolhouse where my (step) Dad taught.
With my 2" objective, and about 6' FL, Mars was a (tiny) disk! Alas, even at F36 the CA was a bit horrendous. Good times, nonetheless. Remembered fondly nearly 70 odd years later, too.
My first scope. at ten, was a 30x30 hand held scope that I could only use to look at the Moon, while ignoring the mosquitoes that were biting my arms. I had brought myself some How & Why Astronomy books before this Xmas present and already considered myself to be an Amateur Astronomer. (Although, it used to embarrass me that I did not know where the Southern Cross was).
