First Light for Surplus Shed 6 1/4" Refractor

Tonight was my first view of Mars with my new homebuilt refractor. I was only able to observe for about fifteen minutes before the clouds rolled in again. (It's been solid overcast here since I drilled and tapped the last mounting hole last Friday night ;-)

Even so, I've got to say that 6 1/4" Surplus Shed Achromat is an outstanding piece of glass. Clearly better views than my 10" Meade SCT, or my C8. Mars looked like someone drew it with a pencil. Really crisp view even after the clouds arrived. (I finally lost it while changing eyepieces, and was unable to find it again through the thickening clouds. After trying for a while, I retired to the porch for a cup of tea, hoping the sky would clear again. That was two hours ago... Oh well...)

I would like to hear from anyone else who has built or owns one of these scopes. Surplus Shed claimed 'exceptional quality' in their ads for these lenses. I'm not an expert on optics, but I suspect they were right. Does anyone know more about these Achromats? Would love to compare notes.

Thanks.
----------Steve.

From a copier lens ???

Your own coatings ?

Cool project.

Michael, Siegfried and Sam

The lens is not currently available from Surplus Shed, but I hope they have some more made up. They said the lenses were specially made for them by "the same company that produces our 1/20th wave flats". Not a Copier Lens... It was advertised as 'Telescope Objective' and described as 'Exceptional Quality'. It is a coated f/10.

These lenses have appeared more than once on the Surplus shed webpage (each time at a higher price, it seems), and in addition to the Achromat version I got, They also offered a Triplet evidently from the same company. There has been talk about them on this forum before, but I haven't yet seen an evaluation from any user.

No, Michael... I don't have a machine shop. If you have woodworking skills you could probably do a better job than I did. I mounted the objective in a piece of 8" sewer pipe, and currently am using a focuser from an old 60mm Meade scope. Not too fancy at all. I did, however, cut away most of the PVC pipe leaving a kind of truss-like skeleton which I clad with aluminum flashing. The whole OTA only weighs 20 lbs. with finder attached, and balances near the middle of the tube.