hi all visual astronammers,this is just a reminder to check the bottom of your eyepieces where they go into the diagonal just give them a nip up with your hands as they do come loose...during observing of the eclipse on saturday night changing eyepieces i'd taken my 35mm panoptic out of the diagonal and before i knew it the whole inside had dropped to the floor of the pod and there was broken glass everywhere still in shock it had taken some time to clean up and many swear words later still could not believe it !!!! so on sunday just had to bite the bullet and buy another,the guys at the shop could not believe what had happen......
there's another thread going about what astro gear for christmas um a 35mm panoptic....
so go spend 2 minutes check your eyepieces are tight and then you don't have to buy the same product twice
Yep Peter, it is a timely warning!
Similar but not the same, I did not seat the t-ring to nikon camera adaptor correctly and as the mount slewed it came undone..... lucky I used the camera strap wrapped around the finder as a safety.
No damage done
Bartman
PS sorry about the loss....
Sorry I missed part of the plot? How did - the bottom I presume of your Televue get loose?
After reading again.. are you saying the outer shell of the eyepiece came loose and the glass and the tube its in fell to the floor?
yep adrian.. the bottom which screws to the main body was on it's last thread.as i have a rack to put the eyepieces in and out it must have come loose over a few years and i never noticed it,i don't turn the eyepieces on there sides at all and didn't here the sound of loose glass....
yep adrian.. the bottom which screws to the main body was on it's last thread.as i have a rack to put the eyepieces in and out it must have come loose over a few years and i never noticed it,i don't turn the eyepieces on there sides at all and didn't here the sound of loose glass....
Hi Mozz
Just make sure all the ends of your 14" scope are up tight, you wouldn't want to lose the guts out of that.
Seriously, sorry to hear about your eyepiece though.
Cheers
Hi Mozz
Just make sure all the ends of your 14" scope are up tight, you wouldn't want to lose the guts out of that.
Seriously, sorry to hear about your eyepiece though.
Cheers
oh ric i'd better check that it's going absolutely perfect i don't want to start again with that
If you haven't already bought a new eyepiece it is worth checking with Televue what the repair cost would be. It could certainly be repaired. My friend Andrew Murrell had a 24mm Televue Widefield repaired several years after they were out of production.
The sad thing is all this could have been avoided with a 3 cent dab of loctite on the eyepiece barrell threads. Why eyepiece manufacturers do not do this is beyond me. Televue isn't the only manufacturer that needs to look at this, but I have had the threads on several of my Televue eyepieces work loose over time. I religiously check them and re tighten them. The barrels on my Pentax XW eyepieces haven't moved in the 8 or 9 years I have owned them. The threads on my UO HD orthos have certainly work loose like the Televues on a few occasions.
Hi Pete,sorry to hear about your eyepiece Don't you have carpet on the floor of the observatory
I once had my Type 1 13 mm Nagler fall out of my 8" SCT, I blocked it from hitting the floor of the Obs with my foot.
Saved the eyepiece but broke one of my toes
Moral of the story is Tighten the screws in the Star Diagonal and put carpet on the floor
Cheers
PS the type 1 13mm Nagler weighs nearly half a kilogram
Aagh - how frustrating! Thanks for passing that on - sage advice. It does seem odd that manufacturers do not use a small dab of loctite. Will check my eyepieces.
thanks all,i put this thread up just to remind others to check....john and ron yes it's in my pod but as the guts feel onto the lino/timber floor the 2 thin curved pieces of glass smashed and the small one that is closes to your eyes had a big chip spoke to michael-bintel nothing that could be done just ordered another......also john yes a bloody dob of loctite would have prevented this from happening...
I think Mozzie's guts fell out the bottom of his .... Pan .
To the ground !! . Seems to have landed / hit CONCRETE ? . I dont ever want to hear that sound again , Mozzie . I dropped a TV32mm plossel , 2 metres down to the dreaded concrete ...
When I picked her up , she rattled !!! , that was enough. boo ho o , my guts was on the ground for a long time , lost a friend ,to the ground .
Merry Christmas to all here .
Brian.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AG Hybrid
Sorry I missed part of the plot? How did - the bottom I presume of your Televue get loose?
After reading again.. are you saying the outer shell of the eyepiece came loose and the glass and the tube its in fell to the floor?
'Scuse the quality of the pic- it's a notebook webcam. Here's the result of a 6" mirror meeting a concrete floor. The encounter proved somewhat fractious.
'Scuse the quality of the pic- it's a notebook webcam. Here's the result of a 6" mirror meeting a concrete floor. The encounter proved somewhat fractious.
that's what my guts of the eyepiece looked like- while i had the dust pan out brushing it up christ i was cranky...should have my new one tomorrow...
Thanks for letting us know and sorry about the loss of an expensive eyepiece. I only have a few eyepieces and these generally are relatively cheap. However - speaking of glass breaking...
My wife got up this morning to cook some breakfast for my son - she was putting the clean filters back into the rangehood when one of them dropped. It hit the Kleenmaid induction cooktop near a corner and shattered the glass - the stainless steel filter must have hit on its corner and falling about 50cm was enough to crack the glass. The cooktop still works, but now another long crack has appeared from the broken corner, so with continued use - I guess the cracks will keep appearing. The bad news is that Kleenmaid went out of business so I don't know if anyone can fix this - and it cost $2000 for the cooktop 4 years ago. I guess I might be doing some Christmas shopping for another cooktop. I really had my heart set on getting a go-to mount like the Vixen Sphinx SXW I was considering.
Don't you have carpet on the floor of the observatory 
!!! , that was enough. boo ho o , my guts was on the ground for a long time , lost a friend ,to the ground 
to all here . 
i know that feeling all too well when my 6"newt tipped over on the concrete 
