I didn't mean to sound critical. I deal every day with historic buildings and antique furniture. There's always a trade-off. Depending on the circumstances I may lean toward the faithful restoration on one occasion, and then focus more on function on another. I've owned two 12.5-inch Cave Astrola scopes. The first was an F6 that I later sold and the second, that I still have, is the F5 "transportable" model. I would like to fully restore this scope. I acquired it without counterweights and I’m hoping to replace the makeshift weights that I made with weights that match the originals. I also did not get the hand controller with it but I would like to make one so that it is usable - I just lack the expertise. For now I can still use the RA drive. The F5 is unwieldy enough, but the F6 was unbelievably heavy. The pier alone was eight-inch standard steel pipe that weighed about 60 pounds. The F5 is more manageable, but still dang heavy. Both gave/give excellent images. My only complaint is the lighter mount for the F5 means excessive movement but I just live with it. What could one expect to pay for such a scope if it is fully restored? Kim A. Hyatt Architect P.O. Box 124 Mt. Pleasant, Utah 84647 Tel: 435.462.9207 Fax: 435.462.5013 Mobile: 801.631.5228 kimharch@cut.net Architectural Design ▪ Historic Preservation -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 2:27 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] What a beauty! I just thought it a good job of restoration, and a great price for a classic Meade 12.5" on that heavy-duty equatorial. The details of the auction are secondary; YMMV. Think of the verbiage as just salesmanship. I've got a killer 12.5" F/5 mirror made some years ago, not part of a batch but as a "masterpiece". It will get mounted one day when all my other projects are done, LOL. I've got the heavy-duty Astrola mount that I've been trying to restore for years, Kim. The biggest flaw with the old Astrolas was the tiny RA drive gear diameter. And to retrofit a larger gear would mean it's no longer faithfully restored, but modified. This would make it less valuable to a collector, but more valuable to a practical astronomer, so price-wise is probably a wash. I'm just going to build the way I want to, and let my daughter deal with it after I'm dead. She'll have it on eBay before my body is cold! On 7/20/10, Kim <kimharch@cut.net> wrote:
I have a 12.5-inch F5 Cave that I've been promising myself to restore for some time. Now I have something to aspire to. Nevertheless, this scope reminds me of the old joke about the axe that George Washington used to cut down the famous cherry tree. Some museum claims to have the original axe; however, the axe head has been replaced a couple of times and the handle has been broken and replaced numerous times.
I'd never heard of the Telescope Blue Book before. I went to the website and found - nothing. Take a look: http://www.telescopebluebook.com/classifieds/cgi-bin/classified/classified.p l. I hope they'll list something soon.
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