New Telescopes 50mm Mayhem

Well march is almost out and i’ve managed just 4 nights observing due to bad weather. not to say i’ve missed much but buying new equipment and not being able to test drive it gets a little frustrating.

My first new purchase this month was a new red dot finder for one of my 60mm scopes. it works a treat and far easier to use than the regular 5×25 upside downy wrong way roundy that came as an included accessory. The RDF is a cheapo Celestron type with variable brightness. as usual with RDF’s it needs to be on it’s dimmest setting to be useable, especially in slightly light polluted skies.

A friend had bought a really cheap (£7.50) RDF BB gun sight, it looks okay for the money but has a mirrored lens, once the mirror coating was removed the sights work okay but dont have adjustable brightness. looks like a project that may turn out nearly as expensive as buying an astronomy specific RDF.

Galileoscope

Back to the title… the 50mm scopes this month are the renowned and well reviewed Galileoscope. I managed to pick one up from ebay US, cheap price and reasonable shipping meant it arrived at my door for a mere £22.50.

To give you an idea, Galileoscopes available to UK buyers are usually 2-3 times that price which is why i bought it. When i have a little more time i’ll build it and write a review, i doubt i’ll be able to add any more insight to the many decent reviews already available. I will be modifying it, so maybe a quick review and a post based on the upgrades may be in store.

Unicon 50×600 Refractor.

The other 50mm scope is a Unicon 50×600 which i’ve only managed an hour of observing with. Jupiter showed both NEB and SEB and pinpoint moons at 60x mag using a 10mm .965 huygens. Unfortunately seeing was shakey so i was limited to the old favourites of small telescope users, Pleiades, Beehive, Hyades, a safari around Orion,which i wish i’d done at the start as the trapezium was only showing 2 stars and the doubles around orions belt were hit and miss due to cloud. Appearance wise the Unicon is a budget scope, plastic lens cell and all plastic .965 focuser, the tube is aluminium and reasonably well coated in white enamel. the cost cutting also runs into the finder and finder mount. The 2 screws to mount the finder screw straight into the Aluminium tube, cheap and tacky which is odd as the Diagonal is a metal affair with decent finish. It looks like the extent of cost cutting ends there as the Objective lens gives crisp clear views with no discernable Chromatic Aberation. Maybe lunar observing will show up any edge colouring but from first light this scope appears to be a keeper. The included tripod is Alt-Az with no slow controls. While vibration absorption is good the same cant be said for the Alt locking nut, which despite a good tightening still doesnt “lock” the scope in place. it stays steady enough for a few minutes but eventually gives in to gravity and starts tilting backwards. oh i nearly forgot.. the Unicon cost £27 including delivery, which these days doesn’t even buy you a decent eyepiece….

When i get enough time i’ll post a few bits about some of the small scopes i own. Nearly all have cost very little to buy and despite what the “Big Dob Brigade” say most are really very good telescopes.

Further Reading (free books)

So, as promised i’ve been through some of the books i already downloaded from archive.org. i’ll list them with a brief description. I’m only listing those with maps and diagrams as most beginners will have need for them. The best part and in keeping with my blog, is that these books for the most part are aimed at “Naked Eye” or “Common” telescope observing. Common telescopes of the time were usually 3 inch refractors or smaller, or Newtonian reflectors up to 6 inches. the mirrors of that era weren’t as accurate or finely finished as todays equipment and were deemed equal to refractors of 3-4 inches.

Star Atlas – Winslow Upton, This book has star maps and guides to constelations,nebulae,doublestars etc and leans toward naked eye and small telescope observing.

A Fieldbook of The Stars – William Tyler Olcott, This book has seasonal guides and maps, Olcotts books are a good start for anyone as the diagrams are simple and easy to follow. i found one of the hardest steps as a beginner was translating what i saw in books to what you see in the night sky. Olcott made this a lot easier than some of the modern Mag 9 star atlases.

Half Hours With The Stars – Richard A Proctor,  As the title suggests, a monthly guide with maps showcasing constellations for each month of the year. Proctors books like Olcott’s are easy to follow and very useable with small telescopes. i like Proctors books more for entertainment value, writers from his era wrote with passion and enthusiasm that i find lacking in a lot of todays dry scientific guides.

An Easy Guide To The Constellations – James Gall,Another constellation guide with maps, like the others above each constellation has a map and brief description along with the folklore behind the names of each constellation listed.

Poole Bros Celestial Handbook – Poole Bros, This book is a little more technical than the others, mainly through it’s very indepth tables of double/triple stars and their magnitudes. There are constellation guides with magnitude information and descriptions of star positions. a very good book if you want a little more information than those already listed. I still class it as a “beginners” book as all the info is easy to follow, each guide tells you if observing the stars being discussed is easy or hard with a common telescope.

This list could go on and on, i’ve downloaded over 50 books/guides from archive.org and haven’t had time to thoroughly read them all. other titles to consider are books by Patrick Moore, there are yearbooks from 1961-1979 and other observing guides written by Moore. another good way to find books is to look in the Appendices and bibliographys at the back of these books as they list other titles worth downloading. I’ll probably list a few others once read.. 🙂

Free Astronomy Books

Thats right, books for free, there are so many that sorting out what’s relevant for today’s amateur astronomer and what people may find useful, would take far too long to be listed here. instead i’m just giving you the web address and a few pointers for keywords.

the site is  https://archive.org/  it’s a repository for old out of copyright (free) books. once on the main page look top left, there’s a “search” box and next to it a drop down menu that defaults to “all media types”

a good search keyword here is “astronomy” then use the dropdown “types” menu and choose “texts”. you will then be faced with listings of old books in several formats, PDF being my favourite. a good starter book for new amateurs is “in starland with a three inch telescope” by William Tyler Olcott.

Obviously the three inch telescope title gives a nod to what i’m doing here on my blog. reading some of the old books you find there are like stepping back in time, some of the comments made by the authors have since been proven or disproved. I’ll add more titles or even lists when i get time. enjoy

Everything Starts Out Small (even the universe)

I decided to start this blog after reading several “guides” while searching for information on starter scopes for people who are new to astronomy. The overwhelming opinion gathered from these guides, was that any telescope smaller than a 6 inch reflector was “a toy” or “Department Store” rubbish.

My “mission statement” if you like, is to try to dispell some of the myths associated with small telescopes, particularly small refractors of which there are many. I use the term “small” to mean any telescope under 3 inches aperture (75mm) as these are the scopes that get the worst reviews from the Big Dobsonian owners. Before I alienate every large reflector owner, i must point out that many of these owners also own smaller refractors.

It’s the few BigDob owners that respond to posts in forums and on yahoo answers I’m refering to, that regularly trash small scopes then advise selling the rubbish scope in question and replace it with a “BIG Dob”.

There are a lot of small affordable refractors out there that are more than capable of showing some of astronomy’s most amazing sights, there are many books that focus on small telescope and binocular observing, so why do these BigDob owners trash small scopes so regularly?, this is a topic i’ll cover at some point, lets just say i’ve asked this question and the most common answer is based on experiences with these small scopes “as children”.