My new 85ED refractor

It has been a long time since I bought a brand new telescope.

My brand new telescopes include my first scope Celestron C90, and then a Tele Vue Ranger.  Later a C8 and then everything else was second hand, including a Takahashi Sky90, a couple of C5, ETX 60, PST, a 5 inch Maksutov, etc.

This time I got a 85mm ED refractor.  The Tele Vue Ranger is really out dated in terms of its lens, don't get me wrong, it's a perfect achromatic refractor but that's all.  For H-alpha solar observation, it still performs exceptionally well because it's well figured.  For monochromatic light, it's unbeatable even compare with modern day FPL-51 or even FPL-53 based refractors!

Okay, let's go straight to this little new guy:

The core is its objective, it's a 85mm lens at f/6 with focal length of 510mm.  Very close to my Ranger which is 480mm.  This guy is actually a bit faster.  At f/6, even a FPL-53 based refractor would be hard to be a real apochromatic, not to say this is just a FCD1 based (similar to FPL-51) one.  This scope was advertised to have FCD1 matched with H-TF3L, but whether H-TF3L is special enough apart from a simple flint, I don't know.

The scope looks very nice.  It comes with a rack and pinion focuser, with dual speed knobs.  Focusing is smooth.  It's a 2.5" focuser and it comes with 2" and 1.25" adapter with compression ring.   The focuser is rotatable.

The tube rings are very nicely machined.  The including dovetail is a bit too short, I've replaced it with my Intes and it's just about right length for better balancing.

And worst yet, the original dovetail is too short to fit in my Nexstar mount.  Even a long camera tripod balance plate works better, as shown below.  Notice that if the dovetail is shorter than the clamp saddle, it simply won't fit in:

I've checked the tube and there is no light baffle inside, just like the Ranger with dull black sand finish, not bad and it keep its weight low.

The paint job is not very good, there are some missing paints here and there.

The dew shield is retractable, so that at its minimum, and it's about the length of my Ranger.  Very portable indeed, and I've enough room inside my dry box.  Of course, this guy is heavier, nearly 1.5X of the Ranger.

And the tube rings:-

with the Intes dovetail, the original one should be lighter.

I've removed the left focusing knob and replaced it with a brass gear, and I handheld a small DC geared motor there and they mesh well.  I shall make mounting hardware for it asap.  I deadly want motorized focusing as always.

Enough modification for the first day, em?

Guess what, I'm lucky enough to take a test shot with Jupiter during the first night!  It's less than 3 hours after its arrival.  Seeing was very poor but then at least I can tell, the chromatic aberration is far better than my Ranger, at half the cost twenty years ago!  When inflation is taken into account, I get a very nice deal indeed!  I hope this is going to be my work horse for planet and general observations.

I will keep my Ranger solely for solar works, and I believe the Ranger might still be better than this new refractor in terms of monochromatic solar imaging.

Due to the fact that I already had my Canon FD 300mm f2.8, it makes not much sense for my to buy the field flattener for this scope.  The next step might be a 2" diagonal plus a 2" wide field eyepiece, but then I shall be using my Canon 18x50 instead?  Let's wait and see, there's no need to rush.

Maybe motorizing the focuser and attaching a Rigel Quick Finder are among the first priority.