Society for Popular Astronomy

David I have only tried the smaller 80mm Pentax, which was a very nice scope. The larger 100mm scope was much harder too find, however I Seem to recal seeing a second-hand in the old Broadhurst Clarkson shop on Farringdon Road about 10 years ago. What I find really interesting about the Carton lens ...

Barry The skylight instrument is a superb telescope. I've been to Richard's (Skylight) house in London and seen these instruments and the care that Richard puts into each telescope. I know of only Two proper Carton 100mm f/13 OTA's and Equatorial mounts in the U.K (I know that Richard had one of the...

Found this thread over on Stargazers:
http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/92829 ... or-drives/

It seems odd that Celestron fit a clutch on the Dec but not the R.A.

JeffersE - Please ignore what I just posted above,I thought your mount
was using the same motors as mine, but they are different.
Yes - it would appear that there is no clutch knob for the R.A. on this model.

With mine, I have to slacken the clutch knob by about one quarter turn,
this then allows the me to move the scope in R.A. by turning the slow motion knob.

If you want to use the motor drive again then the clutch knob needs turning back.

I have a pair of Swift Saratoga that has in the past taken a hell of whack, going by the dent in the lens barrel. Yet they still perform superb. They are the MK1 model made in the year 1968. Turns out that the optics were made by Tamron optical. Prism mounting appears to be bomb-proof. Because of th...

The vast majority of the Tento 10x50 that I've seen were made by SOMZ (Salavatski Optiko Mekhanicheskii Zabod), I've also seen in the flesh some that were made by ZOMZ Zagorsk. Both companies still list this model, bodywork is the same, cannot comment on the optics as post-Soviet era ones seem very,...

I very well remember the Russian 10x50.
Tento was an export division in Moscow, and their name was stamped
on all types of things that were exported to the West.

On the prism cover there should be the logo of the factory
that actually made the binocular.

Peter I have an Evostar 150mm f/8 fitted with bino-viewers, it is big and heavy, the last thing I would won't to do is stick it out of a window. David- Regarding the Zeiss 130mm (Asal) binocular telescope, I once saw one of these that had been made for a very wealthy (might even have been Royalty) f...

It is interesting and encouraging that the Chinese O.G s are hand finished and of high quality with pencil markings. That is how it should be. OVL scopes seem very good. David Yes, I was rather surprised by the level of attention and detail that someone at the Synta factory had taken with both lens...

Hi David Having used a scope with the exotic short-flint glass side by side with a modern Triplet refractor, I personally would take the more modern scope. I have not heard off any problems so far with the NASA glass and there are people on the CloudyNight forum who are still using the scopes with n...

What really interests me is that the Koehler eyepiece using perhaps 11 elements has a 120 degree field used mainly for military binoculars. I have heard of old binoculars with 90 and 100 degree fields perhaps of German design and also the original 110 degree eyepiece designed perhaps in the 1960s b...

David I know that the H/6400 was a system that was re-fined by the Artillery. Some of the figures you quote do ring a bell, maybe any ex-service person reading this might like to enlighten us. Last night I took the following WW11 binoculars out to have a look around: blc (Zeiss) 6x30 H/6400, Kershaw...

David Your reticle is indeed the Standard Feldstecher Strichplatte that was used in the 6x30 models. The triangle on your pair would indicate that the binoculars were most likely made for temperate climate use. For colder climate they usually had K.F. Initials, and for really cold climates (i.e. Eas...

David I own several pairs of WW11 binoculars (German and British), and have found them to be excellent. I much prefer to use them instead of the modern day stuff. Your BMK marked binoculars will be solid performers, based on my experience of this type of binocular. Do they contain the standard H/640...