I've had rain and high winds here pretty much nonstop since Wednesday afternoon. At noon today, the rain stopped, the temps dropped, and the humidity kicked up a notch. Why did that sound like Dr. Seuss?
Anyways, I've been bored, and that leads to thinking and possibly spending. This time I avoided the spending. I was thinking about an old early '70's Sears 60mm I've had for about 4 years and used as many times.
I bought it for $20; the mount was broken at the base. Can't weld that stuff, so I used the mount that my Tasco 4.5 came on. The 4.5 was too much scope for the mount, especially with the counterweight, so I made a
I made a clamshell and bracket to fasten the 60mm to the mount, changed the counterweight with a lighter one, and now it's solid. Too bad they weren't sold like this back then.
I had the bright idea of attaching a
), and the "ID label", if you will:To attach the camera, I used a strip of plastic and a layer of duct tape. Talk about high-tech. I then firmly pushed it all together onto the drawtube. I kid you not, it was rock solid. After being out in the 4C (40F) temps, I had to let the scope & camera warm up to get them apart!
And in case you care, the clamshell. Some flat bar, a bolt, another bolt for clamping a bicycle cabe, and a bicycle spoke. Works just like a "real" clamshell, is felt lined inside, and looks good, at least in the dark... I'm such a hick
Enough of that though
After putting together and taking out all this, it had cleared somewhat, though it was still humid and the clouds were flying about. The Moon was low in the south-west, so I focused as best I could through the haze and took 150 shots at ISO 800, and 1/40th & 1/30th second exposures. The 1/30th pics came out the best, so I stacked 30 of the best with PIPP and Autostakkert2. The final processing was in ImPPG. Not bad, considering the conditions:You can see that even the crappy finder scope on this thing is lined up... Use what you have
Then the clouds started to really pour in, so I called it quits and came downstairs to process all that. It is supposed to clear up later, so I've prepared myself:
That the original .965 diagonal with an H20mm in it to the left
I realize the views through the 1.25" diagonal and lens will be vignetted due to the drawtube, but with the Towa objective, Celestron star diagonal with its prism, and the Fujiyama KK's, I think I've got a fairly nice drivetrain, all made in Japan....Well, time to go see if it's cleared up. And see what's in the fridge
Have a good day/night, everyone!
