Posts Made By: Steve Hewlett

I have a Tasco Galaxsee 45-060675 60mm f/15 refractor scope. The rack and pinion focuser tube is a somewhat wobbly in the focuser housing and I would like to replace the focuser assembly with a smooth, solid-feeling one. It is mounted to the optical tube by three equidistant screws. The current focuser tube accepts a hybrid .965/1.25 star mirror diagonal for use with 1.25 eyepieces.

Does anyone know of a good replacement focuser for this telescope that will just bolt right in to the existing optical tube mounting holes? I don't mind replacing the hybrid diagonal with a 1.25/1.25 one.

Would the Meade DS series 1.25 focuser be appropriate? I saw a picture of one but it didn't look like it had the right mounting holes but the picture wasn't the greatest.

Thanks,

Steve

I just received a Tak 9mm Ortho from Jerry Wright that I am very pleased with and would like to leave him a five star rating feedback. However, the ad is no longer in your database. How can I leave feedback?

Here is the original Astromart email referencing the ad #:

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 6:45 PM
Subject: ASTROMART - Response to ad #235684



> The following message has been sent to you in response to your Astromart
> classified ad #235684 - '-Tak MC Ortho 9mm-'.
> This email was sent by registered Astromart user Steve Hewlett
> (Framingham, MA United States) via Astromart's email ad response system.
> Should you choose to reply to this email message, your response will be
> sent directly to the recipient and will not pass through or be
associated
> with Astromart in any way. Astromart does not condone or tolerate spam
> (i.e., unsolicited commercial email) and is taking steps to protect
> members from this abuse.
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> What price are you looking for (US $)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
>
>

The Meade DS Series doesn't seem to be a viable option. I received an email this morning from Apogee stating the following:

"The focuser we carry will not work because the O.D. of the base is 2.498""

My tube O.D. is 2.475" so clearly this focuser's base is too big to fit inside my tube.

For now I'll live with the focuser I've got, it is actually pretty smooth and doesn't wobble during focusing.

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks to all for the suggestions and comments.

Steve

Several weeks ago I bought a Tasco Galaxsee 60mm f/15 refractor at a closeout sale on the web. After reading all the diatribes against "department store" telescopes on the internet I awaited with some trepidation the delivery of my telescope.

I am pleased to report that I am very happy with my purchase. All three included eyepieces work reasonably well on the moon, mars, and saturn. (K25mm, H12.5mm, SR4mm). The H12.5mm just isn't cut out for star work and I haven't tried the SR4mm on the stars. I have bought and tried a selection of SMA, MA, and Plossls I found here and there on sale on the internet and find the Celestron Nexstar 32mm Plossl to be great for star viewing. The Celestron SMAs are good on planets and acceptable when centered on stars. The Meade 9mm MA is very touchy on focusing and not as good quality as the Celestron 10mm SMA in my opinion. In short I am quite pleased with the optics on the Tasco 60mm scope. Planetary views are clean and crisp (even quite good with the SR4mm)and it was a real thrill for both my wife and I to see Saturn through a telescope for the first time.

The mount is an EQ1 and is a little flimsy during focusing, especially at higher magnifications. The focuser is wobbly when shaken by hand but during focusing is quite smooth with no side-to-side wobble. The 5x24 finder actually works pretty well but needs to be aligned at the start of every session. We have not tried the barlows (2x and 3x) that came with the telescope as the useful magnification of the scope is in the 90x-125x range depending on seeing conditions, using the 50 times aperture dia. in inches formula (which is why the SR4mm yielding 225x was such a pleasant surprise).

All in all, I think I got a pretty good deal for $81 including shipping,handling, & tax and expect to use this telescope for years to come. There is so much to learn in charting and learning the night sky that we will be beginners for years to come I think. We still enjoy using our Bushnell 7x50 binoculars for viewing the sky as well.

Steve

We just went out and looked for about twenty minutes. I saw three and my wife saw one. Between the bright moon and the scattered high hazy clouds the seeing is not too good. The first one I saw was a good one but the next two were very brief as was the one my wife saw. We may try again later or early tomorrow morning.

Steve
Framingham, MA

Thanks Hugh,

I found the ad by searching by ad # under Archives,

Steve