The Duckadang Celestron Orange C14

pmrid (Peter) · #1 30-04-2010, 03:35 AM

I'm chasing information about the old (20+ years) orange-tube C14 that used to be housed at the Duckadang Lions' Observatory in SE Qld - near the site of the Qld Astrofest. I understand that before that, it was with the ASNSW (until the early 90s). It's been decomissioned and I now have the opportunity to put it back into service but it has several 'issues' and I'm hoping someone in IIS will remember the scope or, better still, have worked on it.
It's well out of collimation and perhaps worse. I understand that the secondary and also the corrector plate may be out of index with the primary after a 'clean' in the past 8 years. I also see that both mirror locking bolts have been removed and the holes seemingly bogged up. That might be because some after-market anti-flop device has been installed, or it might be for some other reason.
Does anyone know about these things, or able to give me any information about this grand old scope. Optically it looks pretty darn good, subject to collimation and perhaps other alignments, and ought to be able to be returned to active service with a bit of TLC.

It is shown it the attachments sitting on an NEQ6Pro.

Peter.

astroron (Ron) · #2 30-04-2010, 10:20 AM

Hi Peter, maybe you could contact Don Whiteman from Bintel as to it's ASNW history before Duckadang

The Mirror locks might have been removed by them

Looks good on that mount

erick (Eric) · #3 30-04-2010, 01:41 PM

Yes, a grand old scope indeed. Hope you can get the help you need to restore it to as new!

Bolts_Tweed (Mark) · #4 02-05-2010, 10:25 PM

Gday Peter

Renato (I think he is or was the SAS president) has worked on the scope - without success I think. You might get a contact for him the SAS webpage (www.sas.org.au)

Mr Marples installed the new 9.25 for the Lions Club and decommisioned the old orange scope. Again check the SAS website or he works at Sirius Optics at Underwood on Saturdays - I am sure he can give more info

Mark Bolton

Satchmo · #5 02-05-2010, 10:36 PM

From my memory the scope was not worked on in any way back in its ASNSW days and it was almost as new. It was only used two nights I think ( yes twice

). It was intended to go in to the Bowen Observatory , which at the time was under construction. It had a fork mount and wedge, and was used once on a temporary concrete pier we cast in the grounds of the Bowen Mt observatory and another night it was mounted under a dome in the old Tebbutt observatory. With its old fork etc it was a real challenge for two people to lift on to the mount.

It is a shame to see the instrument has fallen in to disrepair, with various mods. There were no issues with it I can remember at the time, except how easy the corrector plate dewed up. It would probably be close to 30 years old as it was five years or so old when the ASNSW bought it.

Of that vintage the mirrors were all standard coating and MgF2 on the corrector, so I remember with a standard reflectance star diagonal in , the light throughput was a bit challenged by todays standards.

Terry B · #6 03-05-2010, 09:58 AM

We have a very similar optical tube in our observatory. (UNENTAS).
Ours is on its original fork and serves the club well.
I looked at the mirror lock mechanism on our some time ago but from what I could find out, it is only for transport and not used when actually using the scope. The screws only reach when the mirror is wound fully back.
It is a beast to man handle and really needs 2 people to aim it and then reach the locks. We now have an argo navis on it and this has helped.
I see yours is on an EQ6. This would be pushing the EQ6 pretty hard as the OTA is pretty heavy.
good luck with making it work.
The view of saturn through ours is magical and galaxies are lovely and bright.

DavidTrap (David) · #7 03-05-2010, 10:06 AM

Terry,

I think Peter has ordered something more suitable for this beast to ride on - he mentioned a Titan in another thread.

I've used one of these scope at high school, so we're talking >15yrs ago. I too, don't recall their being any mirror lock mechanism - however, we never did any serious imaging though.

DT

pmrid (Peter) · #8 03-05-2010, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terry B

We now have an argo navis on it and this has helped.
I see yours is on an EQ6. This would be pushing the EQ6 pretty hard as the OTA is pretty heavy.

Thanks Terry. Yes. The EQ6 is just somewhere to park it for now. At 23kg, it is right at the max load for the EQ6 and therefore unwise to actually drive it with. But hey. It LOOKS good.

Peter.

pmrid (Peter) · #9 03-05-2010, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satchmo

From my memory the scope was not worked on in any way back in its ASNSW days and it was almost as new. It was only used two nights I think ( yes twice

). It was intended to go in to the Bowen Observatory , which at the time was under construction. It had a fork mount and wedge, and was used once on a temporary concrete pier we cast in the grounds of the Bowen Mt observatory and another night it was mounted under a dome in the old Tebbutt observatory. With its old fork etc it was a real challenge for two people to lift on to the mount.

It is a shame to see the instrument has fallen in to disrepair, with various mods. There were no issues with it I can remember at the time, except how easy the corrector plate dewed up. It would probably be close to 30 years old as it was five years or so old when the ASNSW bought it.

Of that vintage the mirrors were all standard coating and MgF2 on the corrector, so I remember with a standard reflectance star diagonal in , the light throughput was a bit challenged by todays standards.

Thanks Mark. Every little bit of history helps .

Peter.

PeterM · #10 04-05-2010, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satchmo

From my memory the scope was not worked on in any way back in its ASNSW days and it was almost as new. It was only used two nights I think ( yes twice

). It was intended to go in to the Bowen Observatory , which at the time was under construction. It had a fork mount and wedge, and was used once on a temporary concrete pier we cast in the grounds of the Bowen Mt observatory and another night it was mounted under a dome in the old Tebbutt observatory. With its old fork etc it was a real challenge for two people to lift on to the mount.

It is a shame to see the instrument has fallen in to disrepair, with various mods. There were no issues with it I can remember at the time, except how easy the corrector plate dewed up. It would probably be close to 30 years old as it was five years or so old when the ASNSW bought it.

Of that vintage the mirrors were all standard coating and MgF2 on the corrector, so I remember with a standard reflectance star diagonal in , the light throughput was a bit challenged by todays standards.

Hi Mark,

I am not so sure that any mods have been made to the overall OTA, the only issues I understood the grand old lady had were in the electronics.
With Peter (pmrid) the OTA has gone to a place that I have no doubt it will be appreciated and used probably more than in the last 20 years.
Since removing the OTA from the Duckadang Observatory dome about 3 weeks ago, there has been a suggestion made that perhaps 8 or so years ago the secondary may have been rotated under the corrector plate, and that there may not have been any reference marks to bring the secondary back to its original position. I don't believe any issues relate to the corrector being removed or rotated but am not entirely sure on that other than knowing if it was done by the guys who installed it and used it in the 90s they were meticulous in everything they did.
I may well be wrong here but if the secondary was rotated (don't know by how much) other than affecting collimation would this effect the overall integrity of the system? If so what approach could be taken to ensure the 2ndry was in sync?

PeterM.

DavidTrap (David) · #11 04-05-2010, 05:47 PM

Would a call to Don Whiteman at Bintel answer some of these queries? I understood he was "factory trained" many moons ago on this sort of gear!!!???!!?!??!?

DT

Satchmo · #12 04-05-2010, 05:57 PM

Hi Peter

It really depends on the quality of the components. If they are all a good `figure of revolution' then no issues. If there was any astigmatism in the components then they may have rotated them to cancel out and get the best wavefront.

There is also the possibility of the corrector plate having some astigmatism and maybe one other component to rotate and cancel. A lot to play with . My 1979 vintage C8 certainly had reference marks.

Don Whiteman did a Celestron maintenance course years ago -he might be the most qualified to help.

My memory of the old C14 was that it had pretty descent optics.

Hope this helps.