Very old 4" Unitron

I just picked up a old 4" Untrion photo EG with astro cam, 60mm guide scope, and solar screen. I would guess this scope was made before 1958, the tripod has casters, and the tube is made of brass!

The mount and tripd are in super condtion, the casters are easy to remove, and it has the tray light. The Tube and optics could use a good restore job, the paint is shot, as well there is a chip on the 60mm objective! The 4" Objective needs taking apart and cleaning.

This was the weight driven model, the guy i bought it from cant find the weight drive, but i do have the rod, and weight and another part for the drive, the guy said we would look around for the drive. The Astro cam comes in a wooden box with two plates and some other stuff!

It also included many old 1.25" eyep's, no diagonals or any Unihex's!

Dont know what i am going to do with the tube amd optics, the tube is very heavy on the focuser end, and the focuser is the smaller one not the super focuser, it also does not work very well.

Myabe Roland can turn it into a faster APO!!

Chas

You should post some pictures! I don't think I've
ever seen a 4" that old. Would be interesting to see.

Charles Peterson said:

The Tube and optics could use a good restore job, the paint is shot, as well there is a chip on the 60mm objective! The 4" Objective needs taking apart and cleaning.



Chas

I wouldn't take apart the lens cell unless you're very sure of what you're doing.

My astronomical society recently did some basic restoration on a similar era 102mm F15 Unitron, and we found all the objective needed was to have the lens cell removed from the tube so we could clean the rear element.

It was amazing how much junk found it's way up the tube to land on the back of the lens over the last 50 years. It came out beautiful, and it performs like new.

I've heard too many stories of people taking apart lens cells and when they're done, they end up with a damaged lens because an element cracked or chipped while they were trying to put it back in, or the reassembled lens didn't perform quite right because they couldn't get the spacing or alignment right.

The Unitron 4 is a very nice scope. They were well made, and give beautiful images.

Good luck with it.