Fred Ley

Hey Manos, If the law operated strictly by the law, everyone would be in violation of something and we would all end up behind bars. The way I see it, if your structure is a temporary one and not an actual addition, it should stay. I believe that that is why these small storage sheds are sold. When one moves you simply take it down. I feel sorry that your neighbor doesn't have much else to do with his time. Perhaps you could invite him over and show him the wonders of the night sky and the work that you do. I am certain that a view of Saturn or even the good old Moon would make him say "Wow!". -Fred

Frank, Very nice scopes with lots of memories attached to them. The Cave 6-inch comes with a Unitron focuser and for that instrument I have a Unitron 1.25-inch star diagonal, the 1.25-inch Rotary eyepiece holder and an additional Unitron astro camera and 40mm Unitron eyepiece. The multiple eyepiece holder on your telescope must be rare too. I have seen them in literature, but never in person. I believe that Unitron had them in the early years prior to introducing the rotary eyepiece holder. Guess I better go look into a catlog to make sure. -Fred

Here is an image of the largest Polarex/Unitron refractor made. It is the 8-inch (200mm) model with at f/15 (3,000mm) focal length. The guide scope is 4-inch f/15 (1,500mm) and the viewfinder is 2.4-inch (60mm) f/11.67 (700mm). I was told years ago that an amateur in Japan owns one. This is the only image of one of these that I have ever seen. Just thought you all would find this of interest. -Fred

Frank, Neat refractor you have there. Ahh... talk about ultra-portability and you get nice views of the Moon and Planets too. Throw in a few Messier objects too, among others. Below is my first telescope. The 2.4-inch Polarex (Unitron) bought in Athens, Greece in April of 1971 when I turned 14. It is an altazimuth model. I have since added the following accessories to it... -Equatorial mount -Electric clock drive -Rotary eyepiece holder (for 5 .965 eyepieces and 1 1.25-inch eyepiece) -40mm Unitron 1.25-inch eyepiece -7mm Polarex .965-inch eyepiece -Sun screen -Herschel wedge -Solar aperture diaphragm -Unitron astro camera (takes 3.25x4.25-inch glass plates or plastic sheet film which I don't think can be bought anymore) -Unibalance tube assembly -Uniclamp camera bracket The other two images are of the weight driven clock drive that was used on the 4-inch and 5-inch Unitrons. The 6-inch model had a weight drive that is quite larger than the one that I have. I spent many days and nights back then making drawings of sunspots and night time objects from my balcony in Athens. I plan to get around to scanning some of them and posting them on my web site. One thing that is for certain, Athens had far better skies back then then it does now. I guess that every place had better skies that far back. For example, in the summer of 1979 I was in Aghia Paraskevi observing variable stars with an old friend of mine, George Stephanopoulos, and with his 4-inch Polarex I was able to observe, using averted vision, a 12.5 magnitude comparison star in oder to make my estimate. Anyhow, I'll stop here before this turns into a book. -Fred Polarex 2.4-inch Unitron weight drive closeup Unitron weight drive

George, You are more than welcome to take a look throught the telescope. It is just a matter nailing down a date, good weather-no clouds and setting it up. Oh yes, Unitron. My first telescope was a 2.4-inch refractor named Polarex, they were called Unitron in the U.S. It initially was an altazimuth telescope and as time passed I acquired the equatorial, clock drive, rotary eyepiece holder, Herschel solar wedge, sun screen, astro camera, etc. I still have this telescope, my first one. I also collect old catalogs from telescope manufacturers. I have quite a stack of catalogs. I have two different Unitron catalogs from the 1950's. I believe they are about the same age as I am if not slightly older. As far as I know, Unitron does not sell their refractors anymore. They can be found on the internet, usually on EBAY or Astromart, as used instruments. I will post an image for you of my UNitron weight drive. I have never used it as it was bought when I had a 4-inch Unitron on an altazimuth mount. I was going to buy a Unitron equatorial mount for the optical tube assembly and weight drive, but the prices had gone up quite high and I decided against it at the time. Here is an interesting bit of information. Unitron also had an 8-inch refractor. Not to many people know about it. There is a Unitron collectors group on Yahoo if you are interested-also for Cave too. Yeah, the web site is a good one. I keep thinking of scanning my collection too. It will be big. -Fred

Hi! The telescope is here in Athens. I wouldn't dream of leaving it somewhere else. In California I once took it to a star party, but it is heavy. The tube is easy, it is the mount and pier that are heavy. If ever have it installed in a permanent place, I would fill the hollow pier with sand in order to dampen out any vibrations. This telescope actually has a history to it. This link below will take you to an article that Iakovos Stellas wrote about the telescope after asking me a whole bunch of questions. There are a few additional images of the instrument and its 8-foot case that I built for it. Oh yes, the article is in the Greek language. And the link is... http://hellas-astro.gr/article.php?id=176&topic=astro_history&subtopic= The telescope is currently housed at a friends, otherwise I would be more than happy to make viewing through it available to anyone who might be interested. -Fred

Hi! The large refractor in the image posted by Dimpap is the 26.8-inch f/21 Treptow Refractor at Archenhold Observatory in Berlin. It was restored in 1959 as it had sustained some damage from the war. The first image is of a Cave Astrola 6-inch f/15 refactor. The objective lens is an achromat made by A. Jaegers in Lynbrook, New York. The instrument pictured here does not display the original dew cap and it was originally sold on a steel pier. Cave had a 4-inch model that was sold on a tripod. My 1972 Cave 6-inch is original on the 6-foot steel pier. It is an excellent instrument and even though it is a doublet, the images of the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are a sight to see. It has even performed very well on nights with lousy seeing conditions. I would not trade it for anything. Below is a few images of my unit. Yes, I love refractors. Also big Dobs for looking at galaxies.-Yeah! -Fred This is a detail showing the 1.5-inch RA and 1.5-inch Dec. mount. The steel pier has a height of 6-feet or 1,829 mm. The viewfinder is an old Unitron 1.6-inch (40mm) airspaced objective and the guide scope is an old Meade 2.4-inch (90mm) with a focal length of 700mm. The original focuser has been removed and is in stor Here is the refractor in its original observatory in California.

Hi! Looks like a lot of fun. Hope that the weather was cooperative for the evening and you had a good turnout fo rthe event. -Fred

George, I also have these three titles which may be of help. You may already own these, but I'll mention them just in case you don't. -Amateur Telescope Making Vol. 1,2 & 3 edited by Albert G. Ingalls -Build Your Own Telescope by Richard Berry -How To Build A Telescope by Jean Texereaux I also have the complete run, 42 issues-if I recall, of Telescope Making magazine that was put out by Astronomy magazine. There are quite a few good articles in the publication. The thre volume ATM books was reissued by Willmann-Bell a few years back and some of the articles were dropped from the original edition which was published by Scientific American-until it was bought out by some Swiss company. Any luck checking out the Boston Gear and Hurst motor sites? -Fred

George, If you want a very simple equatorial mount that allows one to manually push the tube in RA, then why not think of making one out of pipe fittings. The well known book "All About Telescope" by Sam Brown and published by Edmund Scientific is a great source for ideas. I do not know if the book is still in print. -Fred

George, When I wrote to you, I was trying to recall the name of an old company, started in 1877, in the US. I just recalled their name-Boston Gear. Their web site is at www.bostongear.com and they have an interesting site. Place you cursor on the tabs at the top of their web site and a drop down menu will appear under each tab. They sell worms and gears among other things and have pdf files that one can download. Hope it helps. -Fred PS - Let me also add Hurst Motors. They make synchronous motors that will work on 220V and 50 cycles. Cave Astrola and others used their motors for telescope drive systems. The web site that I have is at http://www.myhurst.com/hurstmfg/index.jsp?image=1

Hi George, The only place that immediately comes to mind, as to shops in the Athens area, is Reppa Brothers A.E., Kakourgiodikeou 3, Monastiraki, 105 54, Athens. Their telephone number is (210) 417-8882, (210) 413-4474 and (210) 411-8568. Their fax number is (210) 321-7448. I did a quick search on Google for pillow blocks with ball bearings and there is quite a few hits. They can be used for holding the R.A. and Dec. shafts. There must be sizes in Europe for pillowblocks and shafts that fit each other. You can start with the above store and see if they have, can obtain or point you in the right direction in order to find the needed items. Also, I don't know if you intend to make a simple mount for visual use or something quite exotic for detailed work. There are choices, naturally, which are made depending upon the end users needs. I have two of Neal Howard's books and they are great texts. I have his "Standard Handbook For Telescope Making" and his "The Telescope Handbook and Star atlas". Hope this helps a bit. -Fred

Hey Frank, Here we have an example of a Tri-Schiefspiegler at the 1985 RTMC. It was built by Gerry Logan and is a 6-inch f/14.7 system. There have been a few Yolo's floating around over the years at RTMC. I will have to dig into my slide collection to see if I have an image of one. -Fred

Hey Frank, Speaking of Scheifspeigler's, here's one that I photographed in 1985 at the RTMC (Riverside Telescope Makers Conference). It is made by Kevin Medlock who did the machining. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area area. He once took an 18inch scope to Stellafane back in 1980-if memory serves me correctly. -Fred

I am certain that the news will sadden many fans of Arthur C. Clarke world-wide. I was first intrduced to his work in December 1968. The school that I was attending here in Athens took us to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Cinerama movie theater on Patision Street in Athens. Well talk about a movie firing ones imagination to astronomical heights. I was comepletly overtaken by the visual effects of the movie. I, and many others, still consider it the best sci-fi movie ever made. 2010 was an ok movie, but nowhere near 2001. I have a very interesting book that talks about the making of the movie. The only humor in the movie was the scene where Dr. Floyd is reading the instructions on how to us the zero gravity toilet. -Fred