After severeral years without a telescope, and longer than I like to think it's been without a lot of motivation, I have "come back" to astronomy. I have to admit that it was a fortuitous look through a Tele-Vue 102 that re-kindled my interest. They didn't make refractors like that when I was young. The only real "quality" scope I had ever used was a 15" Cassegrain at the University public viewings. My 4 1/2" Japanese reflector showed a lot, after it quit vibrating, but I never got serious about acquiring a better one. Till now.

And I'm bitten with the bug rather badly, especially for astrophotography. Especially after seeing the Tele-Vue. I'm gathering my "arsenal" now, but before spending the amount required for a Tele-Vue and GM-8, I recently purchased a Celestron 102mm refractor to use while I make sure I don't have another passing fancy.

Gads! A 4" refractor, equatorial mount, and clock drive! I remember dreaming about such a setup when I was younger. And, just now, I've come in from looking at a moon low in the sky at about 200X across the light/pollution dome of Denver and I couldn't be happier. There was roiling seeing, a pretty rainbow around every bright object, and a breeze induced shaking that would make the old reflector look pretty steady, but there was detail. I haven't been so enthralled since I focused the old Tasco on a bright "star" and saw Saturn pop out of the blackness for the first time. You just don't forget some things.

So, this webpage will be a discussion of my experiences with this new old hobby. And, for those like me who click on the "Telescope" link first at astronomy websites, I guess I'll describe my new scope and initial impressions. Hang tight, I'll have pictures up soon.

I bought the scope from the very friendly and helpful people at S&S Optika here in Denver. After discussing my plans for a Tele-Vue atop a Losmandy GM-8, the staff was a little, er, surprised when I said I wanted the Celestron. They were very forthcoming concerning the relative differences in quality between the two systems, but happily assembled one and ran me through a basic operation and use session. Knowing I would more than likely upgrade soon, I also bought a Tele-Vue 32mm Plossl to go with the 20mm that came with the scope, a Celestron short barlow (X2), and a Thousand Oaks full aperture solar filter (Although I have a hankerin to do photography, I really enjoy visual observing of the sun and moon).

Mechanics

Since S&S Optika assembled the scope, I had no experience with that part although it looks to be a fairly simple mechanical assembly. All the parts were there, even an "extra" counterweight which was not (and hasn't been) required for balancing. I think the extra weight is a little on the optimistic thinking side for Celestron, as we'll see below.

What IS that stuff? There is some kind of super-viscous, clear grease on the mechanical joints that makes the focuser hard to operate and, seemingly, prevents the R.A. dial from operating correctly. It is also sticky and gets on everything if you're not careful. I've only had the scope a couple of days, but that grease will be the first thing to go when I'm finished checking things out and start tweaking it up.

The mount seemed well made and all the controls and adjustments worked. I eyed the long, springy axis adjustment controls with suspicion; a shaky mount is anathema to visual observing and I'd dealt with controls like this before. The mount balanced on both axes with the heavier counterweight about half way up and the tube assembly roughly centered. I could not get the R.A. circle to track with the mount, though. It would slip no matter how tight I set the lock screw. The clear grease not only put a strong drag on the circle, it also seemed to lubricate the channel into which the lockscrew was set. Again, a cleaning and lighter coat of a silicone grease will probably fix this. The rear tube ring contains a threaded camera mount, though my Pentax points several degrees away from the optical axis when mounted to it. There is provision for a polar alignment scope, but I did not order one. I just sight through the hole to rough align on Polaris.

The tripod is hopeless. The legs are made of thin wall, square aluminum tubing with lightweight plastic attachment hardware. You could not design a more flexible contraption on purpose. A bag of sand awaits in the garage, as does some 1X1 oak pieces if filling the tubing with sand does not help.

OTA

The OTA looks nice; it is well painted and there were no dents or scratches. The objective cell looks to be a cast part, as does the focuser assembly, machined where necessary. There is considerable travel in the focuser and it seems to be a 2" unit with a 1 1/4" adapter. It was very hard to move, more so than could be attributed to the clear grease in which the moving parts were immersed. I loosened the four cover screws which hold the focus shaft to the focuser until the motion eased up. It is much easier to focus now, though not "silky", and retains focus at all angles with the 32mm eyepiece, barlow, and diaganol in place, although there is an image shift as focus is reversed now. I imagine that the focus tube is shifting it's axis a little.

The 6X30 finder scope and ring are mounted in a dovetail on the focuser assembly with a locking screw. The finder ring has two adjustments screws pushing against a third, spring loaded point. It works very well and the finder remains aligned after taking it off for transport and replacing it.

First Light!

My experience, and the honest comments of the S&S Optika staff, had prepared me for the worst. Helping me out in that area is the light pollution around Denver and around my backyard. The good part of bad light pollution is that constellations actually look like the planisphere diagrams. While I am not a sky expert by any means, I have gotten lost many a time under dark skies when the multitude of stars confuse the constellations for me. Alas, I will not have that problem here.

Okay, roughly pointed polar axis, scope cooled down sufficiently (three minutes of cool down is more than sufficient on the first night), Jupiter and Saturn begging at me from their low vantage across metropolitan Denver. 32mm and, viola! I am observing again. At 31X Jupiter was a tight little ball will four sharp moons. There was color, to be sure, and the seeing was terrible which only exacerbated the problem, but I was already miles ahead of my old Meade 2045. NEB and SEB visible. Pretty. Drop in the 20MM Plossl which came with the scope. More color, more seeing problems, but more detail. Okay, go for the barlow. At 100X I was over the seeing limit, but the focus seemed a little soft anyways. As the image boiled in the turbulance, it would occasionally snap into a fairly good view. The belts were obvious and I made a mental note that the first test of my master plan was successful; a high quality 4" refractor, ie, the Tele Vue, would be sufficient for my visual observing needs (not to be confused with observing "wants"). I also noted that my observing site would probably not support more than a 4" scope anyways. And, the long, springy controls would most certainly have to go; the mount is way too shaky. The tripod legs were stuck in moist sod and were MORE stable now than they were when I was testing on terrestrial targets from a concrete patio. A rap on the OTA produced vibrations which almost didn't die out. Moving on despite all, Saturn was equally exciting with ring detail easily visible. I spent quite a while testing various combos of barlow and eyepieces to see which revealed the most detail. I have to say the 32mm and barlow gave the best views, though this was primarily due to mount instabilty problems at higher powers. There is color in this scope on bright objects, no doubt about it.

To the stars!

It was fairly dark now with Cancer high up. I wanted to compare a couple objects I had seen through the Tele Vue 102mm to the view through the Celestron. (Note that the Tele Vue was set up about fifty miles west and 3,000ft higher up when I got to look through it.) Though I could not see it with my eyes, the little finder picked M-44 up as a faint but obvious glow. I dropped in the 32mm again and took a look; gorgeous. I couldn't fit the entire cluster in the field of view, but it was still very nice. The 32mm focused nicely and the brighter stars showed just a hint of purple and a little glare. Slewing south, I found Sirius. Whoa, serious color and glare from Sirius. Back up to Pollux for a more critical look. Nope, this is not an APO. It's barely an achromat compared to memories of an old Unitron 3". The glare is something else. It's reminiscent of some dirty optics or, maybe, some reflections somewhere in the optical path. I don't think it's my eyes as Pollux in the Tele Vue was a tiny, bright pinpoint of a jewel. (Subsequently, I have purchased a Celestron Ultima 12.5mm and with the barlow have re-examined Pollux at about 160X. Inside of focus there are several fainter rings within a brighter one. Outside of focus there are no rings at all; the image blooms into a very distorted blob. Focus is very soft. The glare reminds me of movie images where light is seen "streaming" away from the source in a kind of glow or halo. How's that for a technical description?).

Last thoughts

Am I disappointed? Not yet. In fact, I have also purchased the electric guide motors for the scope; something I was not planning on getting. First, the seeing has been terrible from here since I got the scope. I want to take it to a dark site before making a final judgement on performance. And there are several mechanical adjustments I want to perform on the mount/tripod as well. In the meantime, I have had great views of the sun and moon; the two subjects I will primarily observe in the future. The worth of this scope will be in how it performs on what I bought it for, not in the perfection of it's optics. The mount actually tracks fairly well if you don't touch it and there is NO wind; I can get about 6 minute unguided exposures with a 200mm piggyback camera. At 8 minutes there is noticeable trailing, but fast film hits the sky fog limit here in about 30 seconds anyways. (I can't believe the consistency of the film and the light pollution: exposure tests from 30 seconds to 15 minutes yield identical detail on processed prints.) I'm going to make a couple more accessory purchases before deciding upon my final telescope package; an IDAS light pollution filter for my 135mm f-2.5 camera lens and, yes, a camera adapter for the scope. To make that work, I'll get one of those department store 60mm refractors to use as a guidescope. The 32mm Tele Vue gives very good views at about 30X. I figure prime focus will give me image quality about equal to the camera lenses I own and that is good enough for now.

In fact, the Celestron will probably become my sun scope. I am working on a fixed mount for it with a heliostat mirror for tracking. Stopped down to 3", it makes a very good projected image. The CG-4 mount will become a guided camera mount with the little refractor as a guidescope.

UPDATES

7/5/01

Tripod: Only the lower tripod legs were able to be filled with sand. Doing so added several pounds to the overall weight and reduced the "large" vibration damping times, though the mount is still very sensitive to wind and accidental touches. Would not recommend the sand if you are concerned about carrying the telescope around.

Sky Fog: Wasn't fog at all; stray light from the neighbor's houses was the culprit. A lens hood made of black paper solved that problem.

This is the original ETX (no GO-TO capability). I came upon it used at a camera store while looking for more astro lenses. It was in perfect shape and had every original part in the original box. At the time, I was planning to build a dual-arm barndoor mount and was throwing ideas around in my head concerning wide-field, ie, camera lens, astrophotography. When I saw the little Meade, a different thought struck me; I could mount a camera and the ETX on the CG-4 mount and have a guided camera platform. Like links on a webpage, you often wind up far from where you intended to be.

Mechanics

It's little! And it's mostly plastic. The OTA itself is a metal tube, but the fork arms, base, and rear assembly are plastic. The bottom of the base assembly is a metal plate with 1/4-20 threaded mounting holes and switches for the R.A. drive motor. The R.A. and Declination slow-motion controls are what I would call, "serviceable", if not "a joy to use". There is some binding in the R.A. The declination control is not continuous, but gives a considerable amount of control and I have not had to re-set it yet. The tiny finder gives erect images and seems to be some type of prism. It is impossible to use near the meridian, let alone the zenith, without considerable body alignments as well. However, I do not use this little scope as intended. Please see the astrophotography page for details.

Observations

My journey back into astronomy gets better and better. This is the coolest little scope I have ever used. If I'd had a scope this good years ago ... well, who knows. The "little Meade that could" snaps into focus as compared to the Celestron and has almost no color whatsover. I could not quit exploring the moon with it. It is the first scope I've ever had that actually demonstrates a recognizable star test, and from what I can tell, a good one at that. The Airy disk and ring patterns are there, they are round and colorless, and they look the same on both sides of focus. Much better optics than the Celestron.

Now, it is not a perfect scope, but it's a good one. The aperture is small and it gives noticably dimmer images than the refractor. But, strangely, the contrast is better. That may be due to the longer f-ratio, but I'm not sure. It takes much higher magnifications before degradation than does the Celestron, but the refractor seems to show more detail at medium powers, albeit with much more false color. As good as the optics are, they are secondary to the primary function of the ETX; guiding. The little scope is now mounted alongside a camera on the CG-4 mount and I use it to guide exposures through the 200mm and 400mm camera lenses. Details of this setup are on the astrophotography page.

Last Thoughts

The 90mm aperture is just a little too small for what I want in a visual scope. The 7" Maksutov is a little too fancy and specialized for me, let alone too expensive. I may have to look seriously at the ETX-125; if they are as good as this little scope, I may have to re-evaluate my high-end refractor desires.

These are very good binoculars which I purchased from S&S Optika after a fortunate, but entirely random, encounter in the store. I just happened to walk into the store while an employee and customer were in the midst of a very technical discussion on the relative differences in optical quality between several spotting scopes and binoculars. I paid attention to the comments they both made concerning a particular pair of Celestron Ultima 9X63 binoculars. Comments like, "Now this one has very good correction ..." and, "Sharp over the whole field." While I'm not sure of the final outcome of their discussion, it was apparent that the pair of Celestron binoculars they were testing was giving them surprising views. In fact, I waited with more than a little nervousness as the customer chose between that Celestron and a much (much!) more expensive pair. He finally decided on the more expensive set. I decided upon the Celestrons.

If you don't have binoculars, get some. There is really nothing left to say. I received that exact advice from every experienced observer I talked with since getting back into the hobby. Of course, I didn't listen. Binoculars are not hi-tech, as compared to the latest APO on a GOTO mount or a massive new Pentax 2" eyepiece. They're not sexy like a new Maksutov. They are just, well, they are just binoculars. Who can afford to buy binoculars while saving up for a scope? I want to get a real telescope first.

If a star chart is a map, binoculars are the recreational vehicles of astronomical observation; they can take you just about anywhere and are a great way to travel. They are not race cars like an APO. They are not tractors like a big dob. But they involve both your eyes, move anywhere in the sky instantly, and will give endless reward in the exploration and identification of objects in the sky. I have learned more of and about the night sky with the binoculars than with any other instrument.

If you are new to astronomy and learning the sky, get a pair of 8X50 or so binoculars, a good planisphere (those rotating star charts) with both stars and objects listed, and go for it. I say optical quality is not that important at this stage, so don't spend a lot, but make sure the binoculars have a focus adjustment for both eyes. DO NOT GET "FIXED FOCUS" NOR "AUTO-FOCUS" binoculars. Look for a pair that has an overall focus adjustment (usually between the optical tubes) AND a focus adjustment on one of the eyepieces (it doesn't matter which one). I did have a pair of "auto-focus" binoculars given to me as a gift by a well-meaning relative once. Once. I don't even remember what happened to them. They threw up double images on the sky and the left side was significantly out of focus. I've also had a pair of $29.00 WalMart specials. They were perfectly adequate for the learning purposes I am talking about. If I hadn't dropped them off an airport observation tower onto the tarmac, I'd still have them. And I might have been invited back to the observation tower.

Now, you will not see detail in nebula nor structure in spiral galaxies. Planets will (most likely) look like bright stars. But you can see Jupiter's moons. And Saturn's. You can locate dim comets and large asteroids. You can, at least, find M-13 from your backyard and see the bright blob of Andromeda's core. You can trace out the dimmest constellations and scan through the myriad stars in the Milky Way. Their greatest advantage is that binoculars make learning the sky fun.

Highest possible recommendation. For obtaining a pair of binoculars, that is. As far as the Celestron's go; I don't critique them. Considering their usefulness, they are perfect.

Weird Stuff

Thought I would throw this in here as I'm not sure where else to put it. Has anyone else had an experience like this?

The night I was testing the ETX, I was looking at the moon around Tranquility Base. I was experimenting with eyepieces and had a 12.5mm Ultima in the scope (100X). While concentrating on a crater floor, something entered the field of view from the east. I thought it was an airplane at first, but it was way too small. I followed it across the field of view but was so fascinated that I didn't unlock the slow motion controls and I lost it after it left the field. I glanced up at the moon and saw what I believe to be a satellite emerging from the glow of the quarter moon.

I'm not sure what I saw. The object was dark against the sunlit areas of the moon through the telescope but looked like a satellite against the night sky. It appeared to be spherical in shape with a rectangular protrusion on it's southern end. I thought it was a satellite that I had just been in the right place to catch as it transited across the moon. Naked eye motion across the sky also reinforces that belief. But, does a satellite show recognizable detail at 100X in a 90mm scope? The object was defintely spherical (or circular from my perspective) and it had an obvious rectangular component on one end. It was about three or four times the apparent diameter of crater Ross when it moved across my field of view. Talking it over with some friends, the possibility of it being a balloon was brought up. I don't believe a balloon would have been illuminated at that time of night but I don't know how high it would have to have been to be in sunlight.

All in all, a very interesting sighting. If you've had such an observation, drop me a line and let me know.