Re: ATM Transforming junkscopes to guidescopes

[Darryl Stanford <dstanfor@ccsf.cc.ca.us>]

Hi Hugh,
I'm interested in what type of tubing you used to convert the 'scope to
take 1.25" eyepieces.  Thanx!

Darryl

On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Hugh J. Masterson wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> Just a note on the transformation of a 60 mm refracting junkscope 
> into a useful guide-scope. which I performed, and which might be 
> helpful to others. My particular junkscope possessed a 60 mm air 
> spaced objective with just one of the four glass surfaces coated. 
> The resulting glare from multiple reflections had to be eliminated by 
> baffling down the scope to an effective aperture of less than 50 mm 
> at a guess. I dispensed with all the useless zoom optics and 
> cheap eyepiece and used plumbing components to fit a standard 
> 1.25 inch 25 mm Plossl. Most importantly I got rid of  the air space 
> in the objective by dispensing UV curing optical adhesive (Norland 
> optical adhesive, available from Edmund Scientific) between the 
> glasses and curing (a UV strip light of the type use in Discos that 
> make your shirt go white is perfectly adequate).
> 
> 
> Because of the index matching, the glare is effectively gone and so 
> are the baffles. I now have a fairly decent guidescope with 60 mm 
> clear aperture which is perfectly usable for my 8.75 inch Dob and 
> gives stisfactory imaging at lower magnifications.
> 
> Hope this is of use to someone,
> 
> 
> Hugh Masterson
> 
>