I do enjoy a nice project I can work on, get my hands dirty, and use my skills. A classic telescope in need of restoration? Just the thing.
A restored Cave Astrola 8″ f/6 Lightweight Deluxe
This telescope was literally rescued from the trash. Matt, the owner of the excellent Mountain Road Cycles in Waimea found the telescope at the transfer station.
Matt put a message into the folks at the observatory, who represent more than a few of his customers. The info was quickly forwarded to me, as everyone here knows I build and restore telescopes for fun.
Restoring the 8″ Cave Astrola has me again looking at these classic telescopes. Reading the history of Tomas Cave and Cave Optical. Looking at the old advertisements and remembering things long thought forgotten. I may never have owned one before, but the Astrolas still had an impact upon me years ago.
My Astrola is now operational, with final assembly and collimation completed a week ago. So far I have used it for several evening sessions of observing from the driveway. The result is several pages of notes in the observing log, wandering through nebulae, clusters, and binary stars in Orion, Canis Major, and Puppis.
Cave Optical Advertisement 1970, from Phil HarringtonWhen I was just starting my journey in astronomy the Cave Optical advertisement in each month’s Sky and Telescope was something to inspire dreams in a young teenager. In many ways those dreams have never been forgotten.
Yes, a new/old telescope has arrived at Andrew’s Home for Wayward Telescopes… A beat up and neglected 8″ Cave Astrola. The new arrival has me thinking of the other telescopes that have come through recently…
Obsession Telescopes are something of a standard in the astronomy community. David Kriege was one of the first to start building truss tube dobsonian telescopes commercially, bringing portable large aperture telescopes to the astronomy community. These telescopes were a bit of a revolution in the pursuit, with sizes unreachable only a decade before, when a 10″ or 12″ telescope was considered big. When I built my 18″ it is David Kriege’s book I used for much of the design, following in the footsteps of so many amateur astronomers.
The restored 20″ Obsession telescope set up at hale Pohaku on the side of Mauna Kea
A 20″ f/4 Obsession donated to the observatory has presented a challenge and an opportunity. The telescope was the prized possession of Bob Michael having been ordered new directly from Obsession. The telescope is serial number 004 with a manufacturing date of June 1st, 1990. As David started Obsession Telescope in 1989, this is a very early example of his work. For many years Bob and his wife used this telescope to observe, completing the Herschel 400 and other observing projects. Unfortunately he was forced to give up astronomy due to age and glaucoma, donating his equipment to the observatory.
I have already posted about the restoration of an orange tube C8. That was only part of the story, the telescope is paired with a TeleVue Renaissance mount that was in the same poor condition as the optical tube. The mount required the same treatment, a complete tear down and restoration to reverse the ravages that tropical humidity had wrought upon the metal parts.
The RA and declination axis removed from the mount for further disassembly and restoration
Corrosion was the issue. While the mount was mostly functional, it was looking horrible. The aluminum under the paint was corroding into a fine white powder. Most of the screws were quite rusted along with the counterweight shaft where the chrome was flaking away and the rust spreading. If allowed to continue the mount would soon be the piece of junk it looked like. There was something wrong with the clutches as well, they do not lock firmly and needed to be inspected.
The mount was sold by TeleVue in the 1980’s paired with their APO refractors. The mount is actually a re-labled unit manufactured by the Japanese firm Carton Optics as the model Super Nova or RSM2000. Well regarded by amateur astronomers you can find postings of well used and beloved mounts still in use thirty years later. Examining the mount I find I agree with those who like it. There is much to love in the solid smooth motion, this looks to be worth the effort of restoration.
Thus I set about the task of stripping down the mount into component pieces… Of the rusted hardware only one screw required drilling out, the hex drive head stripping when I tried to remove it. Fortunately I again had the proper tools, a set of easy outs to remove the remains of the screw after I had drilled the head off. I was able to remove the screw without any damage to the aluminum castings.
It looked horrible! The paint was coming off everywhere with heavily corroded aluminum underneath. Most of the screw heads were small balls of rust, with hopefully enough remaining to fit a screwdriver to and remove. For a precision optical instrument this small telescope was not very encouraging.
Looking at what remains of the paint on an old Celestron C8 orange tube telescopeOn the bright side the optics looked to be in decent shape. While there was some dirt and mold on the corrector, the primary looked almost perfect. Not bad considering the condition of the metal parts. Maybe, just maybe, this telescope is salvageable.
The telescope in question is an old orange tube Celestron C8. Thousands of these little telescopes were manufactured in the 70’s and 80’s. It was the C8 that set the standard for amateur telescopes at the time. The C8 is still in production forty years later, but the tubes are no longer painted orange as they were originally. Compact, yet offering decent performance, these telescopes were well regarded and hold a special place in the memories of many amateur astronomers. I have seen these little orange telescopes at dozens of star parties, even bolted to the side of huge professional telescopes for use as finders.
