Christmas Trash

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Jeeper United States of America
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Christmas Trash

#1

Post by Jeeper »


Christmas Trash

Years ago my wife gave me a telescope. It came in a swell black box with hinges and hasps and felted cradles. It is a scope of the terrestrial species and has enough magnification that it is difficult to hold still. You have to hold it against something solid or the image will jitter too much.
I tired of using this instrument in the Creedmoor position and was keeping an eye out for a tripod to mount it on. I found one at a flea market. It is a dandy, too, but it came with its own fitted box and its own astronomical telescope. I didn’t especially want another telescope but the tripod was worth the price of the whole shebang, so I took the plunge. The outfit came complete with eyepieces, spotting scope and an equatorial mount. It was in serviceable shape but had been neglected for many years and was grimy with dust and dead spiders. Made in 1962, it was considered to be a good beginner’s scope for $147. Today, amateur astronomers call telescopes of this ilk “Christmas Trash”. The instruments are (or were) given to children because they look “sciency”. You gave one of these to the kid who already had the Gilbert chemistry set, the microscope kit and the crystal radio. Well, it may be Christmas trash to many but, by hell, it was now my Christmas Trash and so I cleaned it up and had a peep at the sky with it.
Now, the sky hereabouts is not at all good for peeping. Of all places in the Midwest, northeast Ohio has the most overcast days each year (this is one reason the Army built an arsenal here in the ‘40s). Add to that, the air pollution and light pollution and one would have to be daft to take up astronomy as a hobby in these parts. I live surrounded by two car dealerships, a fire station, and a highway intersection, all of which were designed to turn night into a paranoid’s artificial day. On a “clear” night I can stand in a shady place and only see a dozen of the brightest stars around my zenith. (I have grouped them into an asterism I call the “Armpit of Noshabkeming”.) The North Star is completely invisible; I have to align the scope’s polar axis with a clinometer and a magnetic compass.
The moon and planets are bright enough to punch through the interference. They look fantastic! I can look at the lava flows and rubble piles on the moon. I can see the serrated edge its mountains make against the nearly black background. The planets are colorful and crisp hanging in the near dark.
I have been asked why I put up with the expense of buying better lenses and the aggravation of waiting for a few nights of good seeing per year. Why don’t I just download some Hubble Space Telescope pictures and have done? Well, the HST pictures certainly are crisp and detailed and complex and wonderful, but they are composites made sometimes of dozens of exposures made through filters of different colors, then digitized and sent to Earth where they are processed by computer, have false colors added, and finally are displayed on my uncalibrated computer screen. With my pipsqueak telescope, however, I am looking at light as it left a heavenly object, traversed a godzillion miles of space and polluted atmosphere and was focused by a couple of pieces of glass. But this was all done in my back yard by my Christmas Trash telescope and that makes it a one-time event and I own it. The image will never happen exactly this way again (as our town sage might say,) “until pi ain’t no more’n a skanky digit”. That makes it a real deal, be it ever so trashy. So I will continue to chew my thumbs, waiting for another clear night. Like Pratchett’s Nac Mac Feegle say, “We dree our weird nonstop.”
Scope: Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL
Eyepieces: 20mm Huy, 6mm Huy Mit, 2X Barlow; 8mm, 12mm, 21mm, 28mm Edmund RKE
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Lady Fraktor Slovakia
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Re: Christmas Trash

#2

Post by Lady Fraktor »


Well I hope you gt some cooperative skies again soon.
Is there a brand or mark on the telescope? Make/ model/ size?
See Far Sticks: Antares Elita 103/1575, AOM FLT 105/1000, Bresser BV 127/1200, Nočný stopár 152/1200, Vyrobené doma 70/700, Stellarvue NHNG DX 80/552, TAL RS100/1000, Vixen SD115s/885
EQ: TAL MT-1, Vixen SXP, AXJ, AXD
Az/Alt: AYO Digi II/ Argo Navis, Stellarvue M2C/ Argo Navis
Tripods: Berlebach Planet (2), Uni 28 Astro, Report 372, TAL factory maple, Vixen ASG-CB90, Vixen AXD-TR102
Diagonals: Astro-Physics, Baader Amici, Baader Herschel, iStar Blue, Stellarvue DX, Takahashi prism, TAL, Vixen flip mirror
Eyepieces: Antares to Zeiss
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Re: Christmas Trash

#3

Post by helicon »


NIce story - thanks! You've rescued a forlorn and neglected scope!
-Michael
Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope
Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50
Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl
Camera: ZWO ASI 120
Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs
Latitude: 48.7229° N
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Re: Christmas Trash

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Post by Jeeper »


Lady Fraktor,
The scope is a Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL. The whole rig is listed in my footer.
Scope: Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL
Eyepieces: 20mm Huy, 6mm Huy Mit, 2X Barlow; 8mm, 12mm, 21mm, 28mm Edmund RKE
Celestron Star Diagonal
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John Baars Netherlands
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Re: Christmas Trash

#5

Post by John Baars »


Jeeper wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:53 pm Lady Fraktor,
The scope is a Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL. The whole rig is listed in my footer.
That is certainly not a Christmas-trash telescope, more a vintage-gem!
Refractors in frequency of use : *SW Evostar 120ED F/7.5 (all round ), * Vixen 102ED F/9 (vintage), both on Vixen GPDX.
GrabnGo on Alt/AZ : *SW Startravel 102 F/5 refractor( widefield, Sun, push-to), *OMC140 Maksutov F/14.3 ( planets).
Most used Eyepieces: *Panoptic 24, *Morpheus 14, *Leica ASPH zoom, *Zeiss barlow, *Pentax XO5.
Commonly used bino's : *Jena 10X50 , * Canon 10X30 IS, *Swarovski Habicht 7X42, * Celestron 15X70, *Kasai 2.3X40
Rijswijk Public Observatory: * Astro-Physics Starfire 130 f/8, * 6 inch Newton, * C9.25, * Meade 14 inch LX600 ACF, *Lunt.
Amateur astronomer since 1970.
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Re: Christmas Trash

#6

Post by Jeeper »


I really like the telescope. I have it set up in the living room where I can admire its appointments and proportions. I reworked the partitions in a clarinet carrying case to carry the eyepieces, Barlow, clinometer, compass, and plumb bob.

There is a nice park near me here, but it closes at sundown. I have permission to use it at night, but to do so, I would have to go armed and. . . nah, it ain't worth it.
Scope: Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL
Eyepieces: 20mm Huy, 6mm Huy Mit, 2X Barlow; 8mm, 12mm, 21mm, 28mm Edmund RKE
Celestron Star Diagonal
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Lady Fraktor Slovakia
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Re: Christmas Trash

#7

Post by Lady Fraktor »


John Baars wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 9:01 pm
Jeeper wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:53 pm Lady Fraktor,
The scope is a Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL. The whole rig is listed in my footer.
That is certainly not a Christmas-trash telescope, more a vintage-gem!
I agree, definitely not a bad telescope!
See Far Sticks: Antares Elita 103/1575, AOM FLT 105/1000, Bresser BV 127/1200, Nočný stopár 152/1200, Vyrobené doma 70/700, Stellarvue NHNG DX 80/552, TAL RS100/1000, Vixen SD115s/885
EQ: TAL MT-1, Vixen SXP, AXJ, AXD
Az/Alt: AYO Digi II/ Argo Navis, Stellarvue M2C/ Argo Navis
Tripods: Berlebach Planet (2), Uni 28 Astro, Report 372, TAL factory maple, Vixen ASG-CB90, Vixen AXD-TR102
Diagonals: Astro-Physics, Baader Amici, Baader Herschel, iStar Blue, Stellarvue DX, Takahashi prism, TAL, Vixen flip mirror
Eyepieces: Antares to Zeiss
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Re: Christmas Trash

#8

Post by Jeeper »


I may have gotten an exceptional one. Looking at my observing journal, a really good seeing night will show me some color variation on Saturn and some banding on Jupiter. Such sights are always hair-raising.

At the present time, I am fighting a vibration problem. I am experimenting with a butyl rubber sleeve with narrow dags on the OTA. Same idea as the archers use on a bowstring silencer.
Scope: Swift 839 60mm, 810mm FL
Eyepieces: 20mm Huy, 6mm Huy Mit, 2X Barlow; 8mm, 12mm, 21mm, 28mm Edmund RKE
Celestron Star Diagonal
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