The refractor originally belonged to our colleague and fellow SAS member the late Brian Spinks, who being the tinkerer he was, had drilled 5 unnecessary (to me) holes in the tube, dismantled it and reassembled it with the front lens of the doublet accidentally the wrong way round, and everything loose in the lens cell. Possibly this happened when he was feeling ill and he never had chance to work on it again. It took me a couple of weeks to diagnose the problem and then disassemble, repair, clean and reassemble the scope as well as fitting a new red-dot finder.
Last night we had just over an hour of relatively clear sky and I had the opportunity to test the rebuilt telescope on Orion.
This was the final image of M42/M43 and I am very pleased with it. I think that Brian would also be pleased with the result.
Click on the image to get a closer view
Full details of the tests with more images can be seen HERE.
Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin
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