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My worst ever scope
Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 6:58 pm
by KathyNS
This is my first ever telescope, which my parents got me for Christmas when I was seven. It had a 2", 1 diopter (1000mm focal length) spectacle lens objective, and a fixed eyepiece of unknown focal length in a draw tube. The
OTA was a cardboard mailing tube, glammed up with a black paper coating.
The tripod was the absolute worst piece of junk ever foisted upon an unsuspecting nerdy kid. The legs were half-inch springy steel rods, with rivets for the pivot points. Backlash in the az bearing was about 30 degrees.
The one in the picture looks a little more bent than mine was, and I at least knew to point it up, not down like the photo shows. I never did see anything through it, though.
I eventually saved up my allowance and upgraded to a department store Tasco a few years later.
- Frank scope set up.jpg (13.35 KiB) Viewed 19101 times
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 7:13 pm
by The Happy Parrot
I love that it was a cardboard mailing tube. Lately, I've been thinking of taking a telescope making class and your Franklin is my inspiration, tripod and all!
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 7:25 pm
by helicon
My worst scope was also my first. The box was decorated with images of galaxies, nebulae, and planets in all their colorful glory. Unfortunately it was a 30mm x 30x scope, with a narrow field of view, and you had to draw the tube out (two interlocking cardboard tubes) in order to focus. But I did see some details on the moon with it, but man was that thing was hard to hold steady!
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 9:46 pm
by UlteriorModem
This brings back memories, yea my first scope was not so great. The scope itself was pretty decent a Tasco 2" I think.
But the mount, ugh, it was horrible. Especially the mount head. It was alt az of course no big deal but you would move on to a target and as soon as you released it the target would slip out of the field of view. After a while I got the hang of putting the target out of view on the opposite side of the slop drop and sometimes it would center, sometimes.
The only way to 'deal' with all the slop was to hold the
ota with a hand to keep it steady. Well you know how that goes
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 10:59 pm
by Don Quixote
My first scope was the Bushnell Sky Chief. The scope was not really bad, but the EP were enough to discourage any further interest, although my first view of Saturn was with this scope. It sat in a closet for over 30 years.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 9:21 am
by ab1963
Mine was a 10'' SW Dob viewed through it once and then couldn't sell it quickly enough
'
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 6:51 pm
by p1taylor
My first scope was a 2" by some London maker I was about 12 did ant get proper scope till 2003.
peter
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 12:39 am
by Rainmaker
KathyNS wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 6:58 pm
This is my first ever telescope, which my parents got me for Christmas when I was seven. It had a 2", 1 diopter (1000mm focal length) spectacle lens objective, and a fixed eyepiece of unknown focal length in a draw tube. The OTA was a cardboard mailing tube, glammed up with a black paper coating.
The tripod was the absolute worst piece of junk ever foisted upon an unsuspecting nerdy kid. The legs were half-inch springy steel rods, with rivets for the pivot points. Backlash in the az bearing was about 30 degrees.
The one in the picture looks a little more bent than mine was, and I at least knew to point it up, not down like the photo shows. I never did see anything through it, though.
I eventually saved up my allowance and upgraded to a department store Tasco a few years later.
Frank scope set up.jpg
That looks better than my very first scope which I found at a rubbish dump..... I could only ever see the Moon in it but that got me hooked.......
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 8:28 am
by mcolbert
the old Mk.I eyeballs were used until I was working and picked up an orange tube C8. Then the learning curve hit me.
. Got rid of it a few years later, as life was getting in the way.
. Then years of having a pair of 10x50's then I bit the bullet on a 130 refractor and now am awaiting delivery of a Meade 8" which is to be played with on the bench.
. So for me I've been lucky enough not to have had a 'worst'. It doesn't mean that I haven't viewed through some atrocious binoculars and Target type purchases people have bought for their kids or for themselves, thinking to 'get into the hobby' and then dumping them after the first time in the not so cold evenings.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 5:19 am
by Kingofthehill
I don't think I've actually had a bad one. I got into the hobby later in life so I didn't have to suffer through bad scopes. Birding binoculars, however, is another matter.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:00 am
by Apollo69s
Meade etx 70,,it was very funny when turning the turret ,it was more fun then looking into it..and now its been walking the floor ,,but im not in bad mode for that,,cause off that im going bigger..
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:54 am
by Juno16
My brother and I shared a cheap refractor. I believe it was about 700 mm fl. We did manage decent ( my recollection) views of the moon, but really didn’t know much about using a telescope. I eventually made a crude mount for my slr (Asahi Pentax Spotmatic) and used it as a telephoto.
Thanks,
Jim
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 12:32 pm
by Tillibobs
Mine was something that looked like a telescope that my next door passed to me last year.( don't think he likes me !!!.). He'd had it set up in his lounge and said he'd viewed the Moon with it ( I think he lies ). It wasn't branded and I'd guess it was around 40mm, but have no idea of it's fl.The tripod was terrible and shook if you breathed on it. the 2 eyepieces were point 9 something inches with plastic lenses 4mm and 20mm.
I did try to set it up with the intention of giving it to my grand kids but I couldn't get it to focus no matter how I tried so it went into a skip.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:15 pm
by pakarinen
My first two scopes were Sears (Tasco?) refractors, one an alt-az, then an EQ. I think they were 60mm. They didn't seem like bad scopes to me back then, but that was decades ago and I was living in Bortle 3 skies.
My Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 binos are a different story however...
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:58 am
by notFritzArgelander
Defining "worst" as "most disappointing" my first three scopes weren't the worst. In order they were a tiny Tasco spotter on an integrated tripod, a 40mm f/slow refractor from Edmund, and a slow Newtonian I built myself, 6".
No the greatest disappointment came later in the form of a Celestron 9.25 SCT which was soft on the Moon despite having good collimation. I traded it for an upgrade to a Celestron 9.25 Edge HD which was wonderful!
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:46 pm
by turboscrew
My worst was a 50 mm cheap thing I bought as a kid. It was great in one thing, though: dispersion.
I could see the image of the moon... actually several... in different colours... mostly on top of each other...
I just bought my second one, OrionOptics VX12, in the beginning of June. I don't know if it's good or not: the sky has been too bright and there has been quite lot of rains. But the night sky is starting to get darker.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:45 pm
by terrynak
turboscrew wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:46 pm
My worst was a 50 mm cheap thing I bought as a kid. It was great in one thing, though: dispersion.
I could see the image of the moon... actually several... in different colours... mostly on top of each other...
I just bought my second one, OrionOptics VX12, in the beginning of June. I don't know if it's good or not: the sky has been too bright and there has been quite lot of rains. But the night sky is starting to get darker.
My first telescope I bought (as a teenager) was also a 50mm scope - but optically it was excellent - a Tasco 66TE. I dug it out a couple of months ago and it is now back in operation on a heavy camera/video tripod. It wasn't cheap, though. In fact, accounting for inflation, it is still the most expensive telescope I ever bought (about US $400 in today's money). Most expensive was a new Celestron Omni XLT 150 Newtonian I got for a great deal - slightly less than $400.
I bought my second telescope exactly 30 years later - an Orion Funscope (76mm
F/3.9 tabletop Newtonian). Optically it was the poorest scope I ever used, with severe spherical aberration away from the center of the
FOV. But it got me back into astronomy after over two decades out of it - soon got another scope and haven't since looked back.
Good luck with your new second scope - it sounds massive. Hope you get to test it in darker skies soon...
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:09 am
by turboscrew
terrynak wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:45 pm
turboscrew wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:46 pm
My worst was a 50 mm cheap thing I bought as a kid. It was great in one thing, though: dispersion.
I could see the image of the moon... actually several... in different colours... mostly on top of each other...
I just bought my second one, OrionOptics VX12, in the beginning of June. I don't know if it's good or not: the sky has been too bright and there has been quite lot of rains. But the night sky is starting to get darker.
My first telescope I bought (as a teenager) was also a 50mm scope - but optically it was excellent - a Tasco 66TE. I dug it out a couple of months ago and it is now back in operation on a heavy camera/video tripod. It wasn't cheap, though. In fact, accounting for inflation, it is still the most expensive telescope I ever bought (about US $400 in today's money). Most expensive was a new Celestron Omni XLT 150 Newtonian I got for a great deal - slightly less than $400.
I bought my second telescope exactly 30 years later - an Orion Funscope (76mm
F/3.9 tabletop Newtonian). Optically it was the poorest scope I ever used, with severe spherical aberration away from the center of the
FOV. But it got me back into astronomy after over two decades out of it - soon got another scope and haven't since looked back.
Good luck with your new second scope - it sounds massive. Hope you get to test it in darker skies soon...
The positive thing in that old scope was that if it had other aberrations, you wouldn't notice.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:21 pm
by Greenman
Well now, this is my worst ever and also my best ever scope; bought for me Christmas 1969 - after me pestering following events earlier in the year. The Prinz was an exlusive for Dixons in the UK and the performance was not at all bad 60mm 710mm
fl, the mount was iffy (tripod made from cheap dyed wood) with the Alt control consisting of untightening the screw on each side of the tube, unscrewing the knurled knob on the silver bar - positioning and tighening all back up [without losing alignment].
Prinz 330 by
Tony Boutle, on Flickr
But with this scope I first saw Saturn and was blown away by seeing the rings, and then many happy evening and early night were spend laying on the lawn gazing up. My dad never joined me in this, he was a stay in the warm & poke the scope out of an open window kind of guy. But it was he that found Saturn and cemented my love of the sky. Ah, happy days.
Re: My worst ever scope
Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:40 pm
by jrkirkham
My worst ever scope was not my first scope. In fact I was middle age when I bought it. It also turned out to be my most expensive scope.
I've enjoyed astronomy since I was in grade school. When I graduated from college and started my family I confined my observing to binoculars, which totally satisfied me. One day, after my children were grown and gone I followed my wife to a yard sale where I saw a small off brand reflector on a wobbly tripod for only $20. How could I go wrong? I hadn't had a telescope since college.
The thing was so wobbly I could barely view the moon. My wife eventually sold it at another yard sale for much less that $20. It was so frustrating that I had to replace it with a 6" used dob, which I replaced with an 8" dob, which I replaced with a 10" dob, etc. etc. etc. That's how it also became my most expensive telescope.