Posts Made By: Terry Sweet

Hopefully someone out there can help me. I recently acquired a objective lens assembly that is 5 3/8" in Diameter. I want to make a Refractor scope with it. It has 3 seperate lenses inside it and when I did a rough FL test, I came up with about 41". No problem there. The problem is I am having trouble finding and appropiate material to use for a tube. One person says to use aluminum and another says fiberglass. Fiberglass tubes in this size are hard to find. Was wondering, is it possible to use sonotube for this undertaking. Aluminum has thermal issues and they say fiberglass is better. Can anyone help? :S

Now that I have my tube material for the scope I am in the process of building, has anyone out there had any luck in re-coating their own objective lens? And if you have, what chemicals are involved, and are they readily available. And did you have good luck in doing so? Any advice is most appreciative. Thanks :S

In my quest to build a 5 3/8" refractor, I have stumbled upon a most unusual problem. Building the tube and the other parts of the assembly were of real no issue's, but when I got the installation of the objective lense I have come across my isuue. I am using a {American Optics 18" lens cell} { not much info on this cell}. I did a homemade focal length test and came up with about 41" for focal length. Installed the cell in the tube and then installed the focuser and diagonal. the view is as it should be {backwards and reversed}. NOw come's the issue. As soon as I drop a eyepiece into the whole assembly it turns out all fuzzy and almost white. I tried to move mthe lense cell to varying lengths to see if my calculations were wrong, but to no avail. Is there something I am doing wrong? If there is any advice one can give, it would be most appreciative. Thanks.... :S

Now that I have my refractor scope built, I have a need for a mount. I currently have it on a simply Alt-Az mount. A close friend of mine suggested building a split-ring equatorial mount for it. Does anyone out there know of any plans available to build one. My scope is a 5" 1000mmfl f8.3 refractor, and the mount would have to fit on a heavy duty tripod. Any help or criticism is accepted. Thank You All.....Terry :S

I am currently in the process of rebuilding an older Skywatcher 120mm F8.3 scope and would like to replace the objective lense with one that is collimatible. Does anyone know where I can obtain this type of lense. I know this type of lense is in use by various scopes, ex: {Orion}, but have not been able to find one. Does anyone have any suggestions? Any help would be appreciated. My current lense is in fine shape, but would the capability to adjust,if necessary. Thanks for listening.....Clear Skies to all....Terry

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this question, but I will give it a try. I have a CG-5 spin-off and would like to make it a go-to mount. It has motors for both axis, and a hand controller for movement. The question is: How would I go about converting this mount to go-to. I know a little about these things, but would like the advice of the experts. Can anyone help. Any assistance would be greatly appreciate.....Thank You.

I am looking for a range of eyepiece's for my 10" Orion Intelliscope {F4.7}and my Celestron C80ED {F7.5}. I currently have a 13mm Stratus, 7mm UWAN, and an old GSO 32mm. I have to take a somewhat frugal approach to my eyepiece purchases, so I am looking for suggestions as to what would be a good stable of eyepiece's. Was thinking about a 28mm uwan, but was put of by the weight of this beast...{2lbs}that's alot of weight for the Orion, would have to use a counterweight system to keep balance. Then I saw the 24mm Stratus, but unsure as there are no reports yet on this eyepiece. Since I rely on the expertise of this forum, I am in your gratitude for any help in this matter.
Thanks.....
Terry

I have a unique problem that is now occuring with my Orion XT10i. I recently had remove the primary mirror to clean it off, as it had accumulated a layer of dust. After following the specified instructions from Orion for the cleaning of thier mirrors, I now have an issuse. Last night I tookthe scope out for a night of gazing, and foiund that I cannot bring any eyepiece to focus. I have collimaqted the scope twice, and had a friend collimate it also....everything is spot on. No matter what eyepiece I use, nothing comes to focus. The images butterfly either side of attempted focus. My friends and I scratched our heads and could come up with nothing that would cause this. I even tried pulling the eyepiece from the focuser a little at a time to see if I could bring it ot focus...NOTHING!!!!!!...I don't beleive this is a focuser issue, since I have been using the same focuser for some timenow and have never had an issue...I am at a loss as to what could be causing this. I wanted to ask you guys here on the forum's as I have a lot of respect for all of you, and have gotten great advice in the past.....CAN ANYONE HELP ME!!!!!! :S .....Thanks Everone....
Terry

I want to illuminate the setting circles on my mount, since it is a manual mount. I'm doing this the old school way of using it manually. Does anyone know of a source for some small RED LED lights I can mount on my scope mount. Any information would be greatly appreciated......
Thanks

I wanted to thank all who have responded to my question. They are all great suggestions, but my budget is a bit more frugal. For granted, the televues would be a nice addition to my collection, but even at some of the sale prices I have seen, some of them are still beyond my financial reach at this time. If someone has any suggestions for the more frugal minded amatuer, I am all ears. Perhaps I would be better off selecting from the smaller FOV eyepiece's, than going for the gusto the first time around. The current eyepiece's I have were almost given to me, that is why I have what I have. But would like to expand a little, for the 2 scopes I have. but frugally!!!!!!!