Bought a telescope at auction...

mjsmyth

Hi all.

I used to have one of the old Lidl telescopes. It wasn't brilliant, but it served its purpose until I dropped it one night and I smashed the bejaysus out of it.

Anyway, roll on to Saturday and I was at an auction. A telescope came up for sale and without seeing it, I through a small bid of €30 on it. Lo and behold, I got it for that. That's it below. It's an 8" reflector, the telescope itself is 50" long.



It all seems to work fine, but it could do with some new eyepieces (it only comes with one, also, the mirror at the base is a tad speckled. Overall it needs a little bit of TLC.

I was just wondering, if I needed to get a new mirror does anyone have any suggestions? Also, are eye pieces standard width?

Oh and the only identifying mark on it says Dunowen Telescopes Ltd.

Thanks,
MJ

Kersh

Interesting.

Dunowen Telecopes were an Irish business. Its probably a very limited run of home made/hand made scopes.

Looks like its quite a long focal length, nice for planetary work in particular, and nice and easy to collimate.

Any pics of focuser, or mount?

If the mirror needs recoating, it will probably have to go to the UK. Checkout these guys.


http://www.orionoptics.co.uk/OPTICS/mirrorrecoating.html

http://www.galvoptics.fsnet.co.uk/telescope7.htm

mjsmyth

I hope this is what you were asking about! I took a look at the eye piece, there was no magnifier visible on it unfortunatley. The actualy length of the unit is 50 inches.

I spend a lot of time just taking picutres of the moon with my camera, you can see some of them at the link below. I don't plan on doing anything amazing with it, just better pics of the moon and perhaps some other celestrial bodies!

http://blog.cad-monkey.net/2014/12/fly-me-to-moon.html

Thanks,
MJ

Seanie M

That's a very classic looking eyepieces, I'd say around 30+ years old. I'd like to get my hands on that! You might need to find a calipers and measure the internal diameter of the focuser. Is it 0.95inch or 1.25inch?

Seanie.

mjsmyth

I'll take a look and measure it up. I'll let you know what I find out.

Thanks,
MJ

Kersh

Very old looking. Could well be .965.

What a great find!

ZeRoY

Interesting piece of equipment! the "rings" to hold the tube are elastics of some sort?

mjsmyth

Hi,

The rings that hold the tube are a canvas or cotton strap with a buckle.

MJ