DIY 4" Refractor

[Anil (Anil)]

Pictures of moon shot on my 3CCD video camara through my 4" refractor telescope

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Fantastic effort Anil. I've only just spotted this thread. While I can't comment on the Carton 4" lens, I have a 60mm f/7 Carton refractor that was released here in Australia during Halley's Comets last visit. It is a top little scope. I'm ashamed to say though it's been relegated to the lowly position of guidescope.

[Anil (Anil)]

Hi all, i tested my refractor on CASTOR doubles. The most conspicuous stars are a pair of nearly equally bright stars. This close double stars make challenging subjects for small & medium size telescopes, great magnification is required to separate the pair. I did split with a 26mm plossel , but with 7mm celestron orthoscopic the view was splendid, with great separation.

Moon picture through my refractor

[bojan]

This looks very sharp and no CA.. at least it is not visible on this 800x600 image.
Where did you get this lens?
It seems to be very good :-)
And, this is superbly done DIY project :-)

[Anil (Anil)]

Thanks bojan for the comments, i bought this Achromat through Cloudy Night Reviews classifieds last year. I am quite satisfied with my DIY efort, had grat views of jupiter, saturn, moon & few challenging close double stars. This Achromat was prduced by CARTON OPTICAL COMPANY, Japan in late 1980's

Day pictures of my scope:

Originally Posted by bojan

This looks very sharp and no CA.. at least it is not visible on this 800x600 image.
Where did you get this lens?
It seems to be very good :-)
And, this is superbly done DIY project :-)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Damn fine piece of kit there, Anil

All it needs to top it off is a dual axis drive and it'll be seriously cool

[Anil (Anil)]

Hi, actually mount came with RA drive & hand controller (made by GSO), works beautifully for visual use but useless for Astrophotography


Anil

Originally Posted by renormalised

Damn fine piece of kit there, Anil

All it needs to top it off is a dual axis drive and it'll be seriously cool

[stringscope (Ian)]

Congratulations. Very nice job Anil

A real classic scope.

Cheers,

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Anil

Hi, actually mount came with RA drive & hand controller (made by GSO), works beautifully for visual use but useless for Astrophotography


Anil

Need a more accurate drive, then. The mount looks a little like an EQ2 (need a heavier mount, really)... just wondering where you could get a half decent RA and DEC drive??. Can't think of any, offhand.

[Anil (Anil)]

This mount holds the wight of OTA (8kg's) & counter weights (5kg's) total of 13 kg's (26 pounds)....thats too much for a small mount, but it's quite regid.

eBay & cloudy night sites are best place to hunt for a decent RA and DEC drives, but it may not match your mount. MEADE LXD 75 mount is good for Astrophotography work, it has great reviews.


Anil

Originally Posted by renormalised

Need a more accurate drive, then. The mount looks a little like an EQ2 (need a heavier mount, really)... just wondering where you could get a half decent RA and DEC drive??. Can't think of any, offhand.