Posts Made By: Charles Peterson

Fed-Ex dropped off my PST, it came very well packed, and as always Anacortes was wonderful to deal with.

All i can say is UNREAL, the PST has to about the biggest wow factor there is for the price in astronomy!

I bolted the PST to my 2.4" Unitron EQ- mount, and its a perfect match, slid in a 32mm Telvue Plossl, and BAMB details everywhere! Seems a 10mm Telvue works best so far, i can notice proms and even a loop off the suns disk about 11 o clock.

I will have lots of fun with the PST!

Chas

Got my PST today, it came well packed as always Anacortes was wonderful to deal with!

Mounted the PST on my 2.4" Unitron EQ- mount, they are a perfect match.

Slid in a 32mm Televu, all i can say is UNREAL, details everywhere, the PST has to be the best deal in astronomy for the price, talk about WOW factor!

Chas

Just wondered if other people notice the sun as red looking thru the PST?

Chas

Just wanted to know whats the best EQ- mount for the PST , and a Solarmax 60?

I'm using a 2.4" Unitron EQ- mount, but the tripod legs are fixed, so it's not a sitdown setup! I would like a small mount with SLO- MO , dont really need a drive.

Chas

Got my Unitron back togther this weekend, i bought this scope back in May of this year!

I bought it from a 85 year old man, he bought it used in 1960, he said it had been sitting on its tripod since 1976 and never been moved, so thats about 29 years just sitting. This is one of the first Unitron 4" model 160's made, i would guess it was made around 1952 to about 1954, Unitron made a few small changes over the years, and mixed matched parts, so guessing the right date is hard.

When i got the scope the paint on the main tube, finder and guide scope had turned brown yellow, with many scrapes, so back in May i tore down the scope and had the tube, guide scope and finder painted at a body shop, it sure looks better. You can not collimate the older Unitrons made before 1956 or 57, they had no collimation ears on the cells!

The OTA is made of brass and has two tube weight built inside the OTA, so it weights about 45lbs.

Anyway, i gave the sun a shot today, i have a Celestron white lite solar filter for a C-4.5 Polaris Newt, and it fits the 4" Unitron perfect.
There is a huge sun spot complex on the suns disk, thru my C-4.5 the sun looks wonderful, thru the 4" Unitron the sun appears hazy and soft, but i'm using 50+ year old eyep's, diagonal and a rather dirty objective, that i'm sure needs some collimation!

Dont know what i plan on doing with the Unitron, it sure makes a nice a showpiece for the living room, but any smaller 4" APO would beat it out anyday!

Chas

Just picked up about a 20 year old Celestron C-80 with the Polaris mount, drive and polar scope! Talk about a blast from the past, they don't make em like this anymore.

The Optics are very sharp and collimtion is dead on, and the Polaris mount handles this setup with ease! Took a quick look at the moon and venus, both were very sharp and showed pretty good contrast for being so low in the sky. I've owned a few of the Celestron SP- and Polaris Newts and refractors from the 80's and all of them have been excellent.

Chas

Now i have twin solar scopes mounted together, my Polaris C-80 came with a Tube clamp for mounting a cam, i just screw on my PST on the clamp! I'm lucky that i have two Polaris mounts, as with the added weight of the PST,i had to steal the counter weight of off the other mount.

This setup works pretty darn well, i can view the sun in white light with the C-80 and H- alpha with the PST, the Polaris mount also handles the added weight pretty well!


Soon i will buy a Solarmax-60.

Chas

Just wondered how good the Meade LXD-75 is, how does it compare with the CG-5, is it smooth in both axis, how do the drive the work? I had one of the first runs of the CG-5 back in the 90's, it was stiff, and even holding a Tak FS-78 the mount was not up to snuff, in other words it was pretty much junk! I'm pretty picky about mounts.

Chas

I saw the ad about some BIG TIME sellers here on A-M, that have made 100's of deals and do not support A-M.

All i can say is, don't deal with them, if they dont wanna support A-M!

Ya gotta pay to play!

Chas

Its more like gone from A-M form!

Chas