06/15/2009, THO
A library in light and constellation,
Their stories wrote in worlds and suns, a presentation
In firmament's delight
of heaven's glories.
A parent wonder birthed our maths and reason,
Spawned progress for a century's polluted season-
Denying us
our fathers' stories.
For power robbed for prideful immitation
Those midnight fears to fade in false ilumination,
We've lost our soul,
And cannot see it.
If peak-oil's crest and global change
Return to us our stars again.
and dim the lights
So be it!
|
Comments [0]
02/24/2009, THO
"So she's sharp as well as blonde?" D. asked as he saw my grin coming in from the balcony.
Last Thursday night a little calm devided the storms and the winds died down to silence. D was off to band practice and I peeked out side. The lights went out and I quickly bundled up, gathered eyepiece box, and headed out the back door with the "new " scope in hand.
There in my window of sky, the old braggart Orion, trailed by his dogs, strode confidently through the suckerholes.
Unusual for a clear night, neighboring patio lights were off, and I didn't bother to set up the shades.
How easy to flip open a stool, set down a scope and pop in an eyepiece!
Of course, the first item on this serendipitous agenda, M42, to see what this spotter was capable of.
I pocketed my glasses, bent my head and
Oh, My!
This lady knows her A B C's and D too! First thing my eye beheld was the three pointer stars off to the right, and a split Trapezium,clean and sparkling!
A hazy greenish glow surrounded the stars, which twinkled a little in the moist air. I moved the view up the sword to the open cluster above the nebula ~not sure what its called, but it always reminds me of a cat shape. ..NGC1981...
10 minutes of wonder is all that was written in the stars. The front door banged with D. returning just as the renewed breeze drew the celestial curtain closed for the weekend.
That's all the stars for the month of February so far. Burnham was right. Where else can we have the masterpieces of art available for our own pleasure to examine, but the treasures in the sky?
|
The Swift 818 was marketed in the 60s as an inexpensive multipurpose astro- spotter. The small diameter integral eyepiece , looking straight through with extra erecting lense was very well built made the scope longer than it needed to be.The erecting lens with a simple drawtube would work fine for tree sightings, but did not do the fine objective justice for astronomical work.
The over-the top altasimuth mount, tho well machined, was poorly balanced and flopped if taken above 40 degees above the horizon.
The tripod, a mix of bent metal channel and wood, reached viewing height for a 10 year old, and would have satisfied no one older.
The saving grace of this refractor was Swift's unswerving devotion to fine glass. The objective was clear, fully coated and produced a fine star test and clear minimal color on the moon. Its excellence was worth more than I paid for the whole scope on ebay.
This glass challenged me to do what Swift should have done with it, make a moderate FL workhorse grab-a-view refractor, nice enough to leave set up, and light enough to carry out the door with one hand. A minimal set of accessories to compliment.
~~~~~~~~~~
For over a year, I collected Swift bits-
~ a broken terrestrial prism and fusty old Swift spotter table mount from Surplus Shed~
~minty diagonal and barlow from Ebay,
~ a Swift finder and bracket sent to me from Hubert at the Smoggybottom Observatory, perfect!
I fished around, measured focusers and cell, cut the tube too short. The cell was cross threaded, and would not fit on another 60mm tube. and set it asside in frustration for a couple of weeks.
~~~~
Just about that time , Brian D (Happy I)from CN had sent me a glassless two tone 60mm Tube with cell . The heavy Sears type focuser had a short wide fucus tube with a longer draw tube , smooth and centered.
This time., I measured more carefully, twice, and cut once. With the Swift diagonal , and the very fine Bushnell Orthos from Apogee, this scope really showed well for a potential workhorse travel scope.
At 525mm +/-, the small amount of CA was ignorable, and the daylight images were sharp and deep colored. I always try to check a scope on powerlines against the sky, and reading certain signs on the housing on the hill across the valley.
The star test was not perfect in and out of focus, but very acceptable a set of rings on the out focus, and circular disc on the in, no commas, bananas, stretch marks or ghosts.
Pretty pleasing all altogether.
~~~~~~~
I 'm not sure that the original mount would be of much use for this scope once done, sort of an O ring mount over the altitude pivot. It works nicely for a longer terrestrial scope. With a shorter tube, it balances poorly and offer limited access to higher altitudes.
A 1.25 inch pipe elbow and a threaded insert solved the problems. The treads smoothed easily with grit scrapped from 100 sand paper with an old screwdriver and a bit of lithium greece. A half hours work and it sas smooth as butter.The elbow was epoxy puttied onto the pivot, and the scope clamp glued in the threaded insert, making a turn on threads altitude pivot, and locking post azimuth. Never knock a pipe mount till you've tried it, a cake walk!
Wood crutches proved to make excellent and sturdy tripod. The exta bolt 6' down from the mount, and locking inner nuts on the chain bolt added tention to the bent wood and stablized it 10 x over the old one. For now it has a chan, but will probably end up with a plywood brace grooved to set over the bolts. For now, I'm very pleased!
~~~
The success of the paint job on another scope only stirred up the imagination ... Now, a white Swift with the tan trim is a wonderful color, but hard to match . This one had a very ugly wrinkled drab, that I neither liked nor wanted to duplicate. The two tone blue of the original tube was all right,, but a little boring. Sometimes those old blues, whites and drabs can get to making a refractor look beyond classic and just plain stodgy. Since this is not a "classic, restore, and for strictly personal use, why not have fun?
~~~~~~~
Dressed for a Star Party...
What's a scope babe to do? Invited to a star party and nothing to go with her dress? Any fashion designer will tell you that accessories make the outfit. Those fine tan diagonal and Swift parts could be complimented by a bronze metallic trim on the finder and objective cell.
So we hustled to do some shopping-
Primer, 2 base colors and some basic black at Tres Pini (Ace Hardware)
Had to go online for the overcoat, and finally matched the tan to bronze at a little paint boutique uptown....
The mount and tabletop were given a good cleaning, steel wool and dressed in basic black.
The little remade refractor was primed painted and primped, smoothed and over coated till ready for her final debut. .
A young friend cooperated so my refractor could have its very own "Scope model "
There ya go, every gal's dream scope!
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_IZANNWmyM_I/S86FvRSJqdI/AAAAAAAACiI/_cvY2ukg9yI/6.jpg
Rustoleum Off white and OSHA hot pink, with a Testors Pearl Overcoat, and metallic bronze on the finder mount and objective cell rim...
She really did enjoy the view of the drapes...
The whole shebang on the crutch leg mount....
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_IZANNWmyM_I/S86FwYaQn-I/AAAAAAAACic/X1QsygdtovA/DSCN1038.jpg
ok, laugh all ya want.
:-D
| ATM |
|
Rustoleum Hammered light blue and green paint.
Spectacular objective!
| ATM |
|
01/04/2009, THO
Well, the Swift and the Micronta had been buttoned up in their boxes
asleep through all of December's dismal weather. Whenever there was a
rare clear spot, I'd pick up the tabletop Jupiter scope and point it
up... But that wasn't it.... maybe it was the cleared off work-desk from
the holidays, or
working too much, and being to tired to get out much last night in the
first clear dry night in months....Maye I missed the restorative
richfield cruising with our old copier lens scope that I'd sent on to
our son last year......
A focuser arrived in the mail this week from Sheldon F and set
of some first-of-the-year antsy-ness. today I pulled out the bits
The objective purchased over a year ago as a replacement for the
copyscope similar diameter (61mm) but at 375mm, a third longer
http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/l3858.html
Preston had very nicely traded me a 60mm Tasco tube for another short FL
objective
And Friday night, I dug a trashed Celestron eq mount from the closet.
The Vixen 1.25 focuser from Sheldon clinched the deal, robust and
smooth, perfect for this little cruiser
The objective fit perfectly into the cell, and I taped it with the
dewshiel onto a hardware store yardstick (meter stick minus 3.4" ) . The
focuser had only 2inches of travel, so I tried out the prism diagonal
with all 4 of my 1.25 eyepieces, a homemade Erfle leftover momento from
the copyscope, a 7. ortho, A pentax zoom , and a 25ish mm Jaegers
unmarked widefield. The first cut, even with the careful measurements,
the tube was too short, and the focuser had to be racked out all the way
to focus out to infinity.
A second odd tube fit the Tasco cell just fine ,and 10 minutes with a
hacksaw, and a bit of tape had my new scope assembled for testing.
The old Celestron Eq mount had seen some rough weather, rusted in spots
under the crome, and in need of a good cleaning and new bolts, nuts and
washers. The black tripod needs stripping too, and the flaking paint
refinishing. But it does have slowmotion cables, which I'd never used,
and the screw on mount offers several possibilites for scope attachment.
Zipties worked well for now.
Well, a handheld the moon came first, braced out through the west
window. Even though a 7mm ortho is better suited for a long focus scope,
it filled the field of the F6 with a sharp smiling orb , steady on the
mount, but warbling in the heat from the nearby rooftop. I was
surprised by the minimal CA with this short of a focal length, it was
there if one looked for it, but not distracting, nor did it mush the
edge of the moon.
The mount , in spite of cosmetic problems, is actually smooth and solid. For this experiment, I set the polar axis vertical and used it as an altaz mount. Learning the slow mo cables was like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror with Etcha-Sketch knobs instead of a steering wheel, a lot of fun!
| ATM |
|
