Recent posts

#11

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:47:46

And here are a few pictures outside in between passing clouds:

#12

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:46:31

The fully assembled OTA with focuser (no eyepieces) but with finder and caps weighs in at close to 4.4kgs:

#13

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:46:01

Well, after having come back from the eclipse trip to Mexico, I worked on the OTA.

First it was primed and painted:



I had put all bolts, screws, brackets, parts, etc in separate boxes.  The mounting rings for the finder had to be put back in a specific order for the whole thing to fit.  It took me some time to get everything together, particularly the front element as I may have sprayed too many layers of paint and lacquer so it was tight fit!

Inside the box (which I still need to work on):

#14

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:44:38

Here's the mount reassembled in the kitchen:

#15

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:43:57

At the end of March I started work reassembling the mount after cleaning and regreasing all parts as necessary:

#16

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:42:50

The Easter weekend gave me a chance to prime the telescope tube and paint other parts:



Tripod legs and mount parts:

#17

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:41:31

The paint - which was difficult to find a good match for - was between a pale olive green and grey.  Both the telescope tube and tripod had the same paint.   I stripped the paint from the OTA and saw no clear indication of lacquer on the brass or old patina so I assume it had always been painted. But that's just a guess:





There was minimal damage to the OTA:

#18

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:40:13

At night there was time to work on the telescope fittings using Renaissance wax using the mototool.  I didn't clean it a thoroughly as the mount as the telescope had obviously lived much of its life inside its transit box with the mount spending less time as protected.

Before:





And after:



The focuser has a nice baffle with a fixing bracket:

#19

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:38:44

After plenty of elbow grease things started to clean up:





and with the sun still shining there was time to prime the parts for painting:

#20

Telescopes Etcetera.... / Re: Restoration of 3" equatori...

Last post by Roberto - Apr 20, 2024, 13:37:13

In mid-March there was forecast for a warm early spring day so got to work on the tripod and mount:







The counterweight was a lead cylinder in a brass jacket: