Hi
@TheButcher
These aerial survey lenses were designed for 4x5in 5x7in or 8x10in. The rear element is a corrector/flattener for the large image circle. If you are going to put a smaller digital sensor behind it, you might get away with nothing (try it) or a modern field flattener.
My astronomy mentor, Arthur Page, had a Wray astrograph, a 9" diameter f4 lens that could shoot onto 4x5 in or 5x7 in glass plates. He also had two Ross lenses, perhaps 4" diam @ f10. The picture shows the mount. The main instrument was a Coulter 12" f15 classical cassegrain with a large photoelectric photometer hanging off the back. Arthur is looking through a 4"f15 Unitron Refractor finder/guidescope. The Wray is sitting between the forks. The Wray weighed about 40kg. The mount is a custom made fork mount. The Fork base plate was a 1 metre diameter circular 1 inch steel plate with massive forks and a worm drive that from memory was 24-30 inch diameter.
You can't see the two Ross 4" astrographs, they are hidden behind the instrument from this angle. Having two, he could image two plates with R & B filters simultaneously.
.
Your lens will be an
achromat on anastigmat definitely not an APO. These are probably at least 50 -80 years old lens designs and predate ED and
APO glasses that only began to be used in the 1980's/90's.
Remember that the principle was that the focal length was long and the large format was only contact printed or very slightly enlarged. A 2 X enlargement of an 8x10in plate produces a 16x20in print. The lenses are not really good enough for high enlargement used with modern small sensors.
I would suggest that the results will be less than optimal unless you get the original corrector and shoot large format film. The project will cost a fair bit. The point of all the talk of my mentors scopes is to show that you will end up with a very heavy
OTA that will require a very expensive solid mount to support it.
In my opinion, you are probably wasting money and you'd get better results with an small Chinese
APO refractor (ED80?) and a flattener.
Cheers
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978
...................Web site : http://joe-cali.com/
Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80.
Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's.
Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12
Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec.
Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari
Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members)
