This was a wonderful watch. Thank you. I hesitated as it was almost an hour long, but I'm really glad I did. I'm not a dedicated enthusiast at all, but I did see some negative reviews about Bird-Jones scopes about 10 years ago, when my interest in astronomy was rekindled. In the end I went for a Celestron 130 Newtonian for about £150, which enabled me to see some comets, asteroids, and show passers-by on the street the planets. I don't know if I would have gone for a Bird-Jones, but if I had, I would have known so much more about the astronomers behind the design. I've since not really used the Celestron a lot, as it's too heavy to carry around, almost impossible for me to transport to dark-sky sites, is not very sturdy, and I live in central Edinburgh which limits visual targets. I've been happy to observe the night sky with wide-field optics, and binoculars, from the city, developing ways of making the most of the skies we've got. One of the things that I find most rewarding is looking up, and connecting with those who looked up and wondered in the past, thousands of years ago, or just decades.
Thank you for your honest feedback. When I saw the video getting longer and longer, I thought about breaking it up into parts, but there wasn't a good "natural" breaking point location. I know a few folks from Scotland and they've told me of the ever-changing weather there. Speaking of wide-field telescopes, my next big long video is about one of the most famous wide-field telescopes - the Astroscan.
What a wonderful video on several pioneers who paved the way to what I consider the world’s best hobby! Thank you Reflactor for all the work and effort you put into this! P.S. I love the new name, Astronomy Garage.
I'm glad you liked the video. I'm putting a lot of effort into making content about all aspects of telescopes. I'm trying to make it more than just hobby related - there's a lot of history and technology that's fascinating! The new name has really helped - it was frustrating that not even a single one of my videos showed up on a "Reflactor" search.
One of the best astronomy history documentaries I've seen in a long time. I'm very impressed with how much time and effort you dedicated to this video.
Very captivating - so I must have found it entertaining, informative and enjoyable. The short-comings you identified may have, in effect, increased its attractiveness so don't worry too much about re-polishing the mirror. Thank you for your work and enthusiasm. Isle of Lewis, Scotland.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! This video was a a labor of love to make. I was able to meet a lot of interesting people. And I think you're the first comment that I've ever gotten from Scotland!
This is an excellent video! Your introductory twenty minutes are an entertaining elementary history of the invention of telescopes, drawing the viewer into your wonderfully researched history of the Bird-Jones (or Jones-Bird-Bowen) telescope design. You have made the history of a somewhat misused and maligned telescope design into a fascinating human and technical story.
Thank you for the feedback. I came very close to removing the entire compressed telescope history to make the video shorter. Instead, I put a "jump point" to allow people to skip. I consider myself very lucky that I was able to interview people that knew the inventors.
What you did just there is an act of love and dedication. I thank you for your work and, of course, forgive any continuity errors and the microphone thing. Thanks for sunny Catalonia
This is impressive research and presentation. Your channel never fails to entertain, but your respect for the people in the hobby and the designers really comes through your delivery. It elevates the youtube experience for me. In gratitude, Don Williams, Olympia WA
In the book Telescope Optics they have spot diagrams for Jones and Jones-Bird focal corrector. It's difficult to achieve good performance correcting for three abberations (spherical, coma, and chromatic) at the same time with a simple doublet. The Jones-Bird corrector is a significant improvement over the orginal design. It does a good job with color correction but has problems with astigmatism and field curvature. Enjoyed your video.
Thanks for all your research and work making this video! Despite Bird-Jones (Bird-Bowen-Jones FC) telescopes being common and popular, I am surprised that virtually no one in our club is familiar with this optical design (nor even the name). I often find myself explaining these, but without my knowing the back story. Now I can thank you for that! Now when I see a new member carrying one to one of our meeting or star parties, I can tell the story. Thank you!
Thank you for the kind words. The Celestron 127EQ is massively popular, but I don't think many people call it a Bird-Jones. There's usually at least one for sale every day here on the Facebook Marketplaces, sometimes more than one.
Really amazing video! I don't know what subpar editing skills you are referring to because it was really well put together. I meant to watch a few minutes now and save the rest for later but it's 2:17am and yes...I started watching almost an hour ago. Very cool presentation. People ask me about telescope recommendations all the time and I made the mistake of recommending the Powerseeker to someone about a decade ago, not fully understanding what a Bird Jones telescope was or the variation of the bird-jones that the powerseeker was. I eventually got him oriented with it but it was definitely not beginner friendly. Since then, I've been telling beginners to stay away from it because it could be a total hobby killer. Nowadays I recommend tabletop dobs and small refractors for beginners. Great work and clear skies!
Thank you for the kind words. My editing was super choppy on this, almost like I was Max Headroom at some points. I wish I knew what I did special for this video because a lot of folks are watching the whole thing (my plan was to originally break it in half, but I couldn't find a good natural break point). Table-top Dobs are a fantastic start. Clear skies to you too.
@@AstronomyGarage The amount of work you put into the research shows and people can tell. I love documentaries and you really pulled me in. I've been working on a topic for the last 4 months or so but can't get the video to flow properly. I need to take some inspiration from you.
@@Naztronomy I can confess that this Bird-Jones video had several incarnations. About a week before publishing, I knew nothing about Thomas Bird except for his name and where he worked. A genealogy friend found an email for his daughter. I tried it and to my shock, it was her. We had a good phone call and she told me his life story. I'd written the main outline months ago, but the Thomas Bird parts were added in the last few days before publishing. As you develop your video, you'll find where it needs extra stuff added. I know you can do it - good luck!
Thank you for the kind words! This one has been top of my list for a couple of years, but I wanted to handle it very carefully since the folks involved were no longer around. Clear skies!
Another great video! I'll admit I prefer restoration and repairs videos, but this one was really interesting too. Thanks for all the work you took to make this!
Great video. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As an aeronautical engineer I am familiar with RT Jones work and career with NACA. I never associated his name with the Bird Jones telescope, which for me was ironic as I have owned on for over 20 years celestron 114. I never had an issue with the scope once I learned to remove the corrector lens before collimating it. Thanks for all the efforts.
A fellow aero engineer! I'd heard about his swept wing work off and on through the years (I even used to work with a guy that knew him in the 1990's). However, I was blown away when I learned of the connection. Lots of fun researching it.
Awesome video! I would love to see how you collimate these, especially the Bowden Bird Jones/ FC as an owner of one. Also more information/demonstrations on how the design works optically and why it is so sensitive to tilt and misalign, what does it look like with anw wothout the corrector, what dows it looknlike when it is misaligned etc. would be very interesting! Thanks again for the great video!
Super. The first time I ever heard of a Mak-Newt I was standing next to Peter Ceravolo at Stellafane looking at Jupiter thru one of his prototypes, and I remember being far more impressed by it then I was by the Schupmann. Six years later I bought one of Roland Christen's first 10" Maks. I'm standing under it in my icon, and the black tube I'm looking thru is the 105 Traveler I insisted my friend Jim Burnell take on his trip with Richard Berry into Gila National Forest in New Mexico. They were working on an image processing textbook and capturing some images with Berry's Cookbook Cameras. Thanks for blasting me back to my past!
A ten inch Mak-Newt? It must've weighed a ton! Richard Berry seems to know everybody, lol. He actually was helpful in this video (he told me about Robert Cox's role in the TMM#3 article). I built my first Dobsonian back in the 1990's using Richard Berry's book.
That was one of the best videos I’ve seen for a long time! Well worth the effort, and I loved the shirt and hair changes to boot lol!! Thank you for sharing your passion, and I always look forward to what you are going to do next.👍
Thanks, man! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I also lost about 8 pounds over the span of the video (I'm on a diet). My next deep dive is into the history of the Astroscan (I've developed a way to service it despite it being considered unservicable).
I knew a small part of this story but not this detailed. Thank you for bringing it to us. Good research. I’ve looked for a Vega 6 for years with no luck. One of our Astro neighbors almost bought a Vega 8 but he backed out @ the last minute. The $$ too high. Your video inspired me to take out my G-8N more often. Thanks. Clear skies.
Awesome video! You’ve nailed the documentary format. I don’t know too many youtubers that can keep my interest for a whole hour and leave me wanting to go straight into the next video. Great work! You should consider reaching out to media companies that produce great documentaries. Imagine what you could do with professional level production input.
Thank you for the kind words! I think my subjects would probably be too niche or "specialty" to interest any of the big companies. It's a fun thought experiment, though. :)
Way to go! While watching this vid I started to get the feel of how much work you had to put into it. We thank you for your effort! I never like vids but for this one I gently pressed the like button.
Wow! What a great video. My first telescope was a Jason Comet catcher I received in 1985. It was a 3" scope that I'm fairly sure was of this design with the corrector barlow placed at the end of the focuser tube. It was a fun scope at low power.
It started with posting questions on the Cloudy Nights forums. That's how I got a link to one of the magazines. Then I bought an entire used archive of Telescope Making Magazines (one of my best investments). You'll find people in the forums of Cloudy Nights that are experts in every telescope imaginable. Great place.
Thank you so much for making this video. I have a celestron 114 bird jones telescope and all I keep hearing is how bad it is but they do not explain why it’s bad. Thanks for explaining! Love your channel
Hey John, I’m not sure if you saw my video about a year and a half ago. I also bought the Celestron. 8GN for travelling on a plane unfortunately it was just too big and heavy and I just decided the 150 heritage is about as big as you could go. I also tested this telescope and also described how this is a real bird Jones telescope It is very short for its size a little bit heavy, but the alignment of the mirrors was extremely hard and I don’t think I ever guided 100% I also did a few videos on birds Jones telescopes, and the difference between them The Celestron 127 to me is not a Burge Jones design. I also call it a barlowed Newtonian I personally don’t think these cheaper models are correcting anything. I think they just put a cheap two dollar Barlow to magnify the focal length but I truly doubt there is any correction going on. The Celestron 8gn is a real corrector in its light path and it’s a full 2 inches as I describe in my video Funny thing is I also found a version made by sky watcher and that video is probably coming out in two months or so as I sounded rare and I forgot maybe sky watcher made a few of these as well and is six and size I’ll be showing it in the near future Anyway, thanks for going into extreme detail of the history. That was really great. I’m sure a lot of people will like reading that. In the end, I found if you can align the mirrors near 100% the images are fairly good, but I think a more modern parabolic mirror, reflecting telescope is probably the way to go Cheers
I'm with you on what is better. The Bird-Jones was ultimately a "poor mans" SCT or Mak-Cass, but prices and options have changed dramatically since back then. I'll take a parabolic any day. However, the Celestron G8N was surprisingly good - admittedly the previous owner had gone to the trouble of collimating it for me. I didn't have to do that. For what it's worth, I didn't read the entire response that I got from Celestron outloud, but they also say it is a combination barlow and spherical correction doublet. I have no way to prove it though. I am very curious about your SkyWatcher Bird-Jones!
does the Powerseeker even contain the Bird-Bowen improvments? It could just be a Jones FC design. great video, thanks for taking to time to document these stories
The algorithm provided me with this video today - and I am completely astonished why. How could the algorithm know that I have a telescope standing in my living room, ok there are other astronomy channels on my regular watchlist... However, what the algorithm couldn't know... I have a red Tasco 8V since about 1986. I always knew it was a corrected spherical newtonian, but I assumed it had a Schmidt plate in the front, little did I know about the exact optics! Thank you for this great technical and historical video! Now I only need a good advice on how to carefully clean the front glass plate. It has been a bit cloudy for many years, but I was always afraid to touch it in any way, assuming that it was a carefully manufactured Schmidt plate. Now knowing that it is "just" an optical flat which in the worst case should be replaceable I will definitely put some effort into its cleaning and restoration.
Haha, I'm glad the video matched with your telescope! It's a small world. I cleaned that very glass plate with rubbing alcohol and photographic lens wipes.
25 years ago, at of all places Big Lots, I came across a short tube Tasco on clearance for $50 or so. I impulse bought it only to find it was anything but wide field. I grew to hate it and couldn't get rid of it fast enough. It was the exact Tasco in your video. To my astonishment, someone in the Northeast US quickly bought it for what I paid plus shipping, which was almost as much. Maybe they knew something I didn't.
Ich hatte mich immer schon gewundert, warum man nicht statt der großen Schmidt- Platte einen kleinen Korrektor im Teleskopauszug baut. Wahrscheinlich wegen der Kollimatiionsproblematik. Vielen Dank für diesen ausführlichen Bericht.
Maybe Celestron's 127EQ is the most easily manufacturable as an accurate scope, of all the designs mentioned? Which is easiest to use for someone new to the hobby? Absolute awesome historical and educational video, well done
Easiest scope to use would be a refractor scope on an alt-az mount with slow motion controls. And if it's for someone with no experience, I highly recommend one of Celestron's StarSense scopes that uses an app and camera on a phone to find and target objects.
@ivolol Within the Bird-Jones type, I would say none are good for beginners. As he mentioned, if the corrector is placed before the 2nd mirror, alignment is extremely difficult. If it is placed in the focuser, like the 127's, it is difficult for beginner's to collimate (aligned the optics) because it usually requires removing the corrector from the focuser, which requires removing the focuser from the scope. And, even then, the image is considered poor.
@@millenialfalcon8243 That's my experience too. Quite often I help out beginners who have purchased Celestron PowerSeeker 114 or 127 scopes. I'll remove the corrector from the focuser, carefully collimate it and carefully put the corrector back. But even afterwards, the spherical aberration is horrible! I liken it to watching the Enterprise viewscreen at warp! Once, I thought I must have put the corrector doublet in backwards, so I reversed them and checked again. Nope, worse! So I rechecked collimation and put them back in the original orientation. I have the impression Reflactor thinks the views from these scopes aren't too bad. What am I doing wrong???
The Carson demonstration scope was a great idea. Might you try stopping down the Celestron a half inch at a time to 3"? The primary might be fl=444.5mm at F/3.5. Thnx L
Nice to hear from you! Thank you - glad you liked the video. By the way, the video was supposed to automatically make an audio-dubbed sound track in almost every non-English language, but their system seems to have crashed on my video.
Thank you for watching. I'm happy to finally get some historical info out there about these telescopes and the inventors. Admittedly, I knew nothing about any of these guys when I started.
WONDERFUL VIDEO! THANK YOU.... YES, CELESTRON EQ127 is an excellent entrée telescope.... and yes.... it should be named differently.....I suggest JONES BIRD BOWEN FC..... GREAT VIDEO... THANK YOU!
Great video! Many thanks for sharing this. My first scope back in 1981 at age 16 was a Tansutzu 114mm with a focal length of, right you guessed it, 1000mm. Like the 127 Powerseeker it had the barlow doublet in the focuser, so not a real deal Bird Jones. Orange tube, wobbly equatorial mount, crappy eye pieces (Kelners or Huygens I believe). Cannot say it was a great scope, and that's an understatement, but the moon was ok. I particularly remember a lunar eclipse I observed with it in 1982. I swapped it out for a much better small Vixen newtonian on a Super Polaris mount.
@@AstronomyGarage The small Tansutzu did however give me a fascination for catadioptric systems. So upgrade I did with today owning an SCT, a mak-newt, a schmidt-newt (and a couple of refractors for good measure) and the end of the rabbit hole is not in sight yet...
Interesting! I was always under the impression that if you grind a mirror the usual way, with two blanks, one for the mirror, the other on top, with the grinding medium between them, the mirror becomes parabolic. No doubt, the pattern of your hand motions affects it, but you check it periodically with an optical flat, to see how the grinding is progressing.
That's pretty close to how they do it. Step one is to grind it into a perfectly spherical mirror. The next step is to "figure" it toward a parabola which, as you mention, requires special hand motions and patterns. All mirrors start out spherical and then get turned into parabaloids.
@@AstronomyGarage In the 1970s, my best friend was an amateur astronomer, and he described the process. I considered grinding one, but felt intimidated by the time & effort required. Strong's "Procedures in Experimental Physics" described a machine that did it, but I don't think it provided the same quality as hand-lapping. By the way, you go by the name, "Astronomy Garage with Reflactor." Is that a "typo," or does it refer to telescopes that incorporate both reflector & refractor designs?
Along with the Celestron "G8" there was indeed a 6" Bird-Jones called the C150-HD . I own one - a bear to collimate, but pretty good views. I'm still wondering what the purpose of those three set screws are that clamp down on the secondary's central "stalk" - loosening them doesn't appear to allow any movement of the stalk. I ended up loosening the entire metal ring/spider assembly and tilting it until collimiation was achieved with the primary and then tightening all the nuts back up. The scope came with a CG-4 mount at the time. I'm wondering if the G8 did also. They're pretty heavy OTA's.
What I've been curious about is if there is room for improvement of the corrector lens set found in the 127's. Could an affordable aftermarket version salvage the poor image quality and make these scopes worthwhile.
I too have pondered upon this although the scope in question is a Jessops 1100. I bought this because of the unusual mount design, target acquisition is very fast so I can place the eyepiece view in front of a satellites trajectory and let it pass through....anyway the problem was lack of clarity, after a bit of investigation I realised the coatings on the focusing corrector had somewhat deteriorated over time. I took the couplet apart and removed said coatings with acetone, put it back together, colomised and hey presto a functional scope once again. I have wondered whether altering the tube length would allow me to focus without the F/C but this vid suggests not.... I might try, but first I'll polish the couplets lenses better, as you point out this is the weak point..... Watch the sky ! There's some weird stuff out there ! Ps I did also buy a better scope with a GEM ! Gotta keep learning !
With a video this long, you should mention using this approach to a Cassegrain, like the Vixen VMC 200L Catadioptic with an 8 " primary and actively in production.
Did anyone else notice that, shortly before going away entirely, Meade apparently discontinued their great Polaris 130 model, and introduced the "Polaris 127" which seemed to be just a PowerSeeker 127 in blue?
LOL, I try really hard to keep my videos positive. Admittedly, I did say that it wasn't best for first-time users... and nobody after that would buy it on purpose. They are very common on the used marketplaces.
I've heard lots of bad-mouthing of the design in general, but I have one of the often-mocked 150mm/1500mm models, this one labeled TwinStar which is a brand I've liked in the past, and I like it a lot.
@@AstronomyGarage After watching the rest of your video, I must compliment you on your diligence and well thought out presentation. You obviously dug deep into the history of telescope design, not just through an internet search, but actually talking to people who lived it. I know this was a herculean project, but you did a great job and it was very interesting.
Yes a very interesting video, i guess the design is now just outdated, in lieu of cheap manufacture of hyperbolic mirrors in newtonians. I did wonder about the initial audio :) I'm glad you cleared that up - must have been a real PINA to lip sync everything up? Maybe this explains why a lot of TH-camrs use radio mic's on their lapels to filter out background noises?
That first 90 seconds required probably 6 hours to get right. It has multiple layers of audio. Some of it is the original background noise, with the volume turned way down.
Thank you. I honestly was afraid that this video was too "deep in the woods" subject-wise. If I may ask, did you skip the compact telescope history? I tried to make that skippable if somebody already knew it.
@@AstronomyGarage I watched the whole thing, I normally don't skip anything. I was auto playing TH-cam videos whilst making dinner in the background, I was keeping your Bird Jones video for an after dinner treat almost. It started auto playing and I was frantically trying to find my phone to stop the casting. The community will appreciate the time you have taken to research and edit, thanks again.
You are correct. I was demonstrating the concept of RT Jones' invention, the corrector/diagonal assembly. Bird and Bowen optimized the doublet, but the layout is the same.
@@AstronomyGarage I have one that I got for $20. I think I have it close to collimated. The steps to do so are a bit involved. A laser can be used but it's difficult aiming at the primary mirror centre with the corrector in place.
I hated dust, mosquitoes, and other contaminants ending up on the primary mirror of my Newtonians and could not find a Schmidt Newtonian for sale, so I stretched Glad Wrap across the front of my Newtonians and held it on with rubber band to close off the front of the tube. I had to change the Glad Wrap when covered with dust. So, I eventually bought a Schmidt Cassegrain, which solved that problem. When combined with a 0.63 reducer/corrector and a Hyperstar it became a very versatile instrument. I have a couple Celestron Bird-Jones type telescopes. Do not like them as I cannot collimate them with a laser collimator.
The GladWrap was a clever solution. Calibrating the new Celestrons (barlowed Newtonians) requires quite a few steps, including removing the corrector lens. Very time consuming.
I enjoyed the optics history… but the video was a bit long and i am less interested in the not optical history. Will i watch more of your videos, sure. Thanks for sharing your love of this hobby.
I appreciate your honesty. I thought about breaking this into two parts, but that would've relegated the entire Bird-Jones section to Part 2. I could've removed the compressed telescope history, but... I figured some people might find it useful. My compromise was the "Fastforward to 20 minutes" part. I still may break it into two parts sometime.
I'm surprised to see that Tasco is still making telescopes. My 1st telescope - a Tasco refractor from 1985 was absolute garbage and I assumed that the company would go out of business due to the low quality of its products.
I'd heard of Bird -Jones telescope and usually people say nasty things about them.I might even have had one as I had a Tasco 3"reflector as a youth but other than knowing it used .96"eye pieces I don't know much else about it except that the finder was stopped down and diabolical! Speaking of supersonic flight in the early 1980's we flew from Johannesburg to Luxembourg on a 707 and we refueled at Nairobi and we saw Concorde talking off out of the 707's window .
Back in the 1960's every company had one foot in the defense industry, even Mattell. I assume that's what Texas Instruments was doing, but whatever it was involved optics?
My first scope was a 4" reflector which my daughter broke dropping down the stairs when she was 4. Next was my high school loaner a 6" Refactor and I was hooked again, After leaving school I returned it and real life began with 12 hour work days 6-7 days a week. 30 years later I saw the most hated thing on the internet Powerseeker 127 and it was 300$ on sale 125$ and I thought it was a decent scope and I learned all the ins and outs about collimation but cellphone pictures sucked. I thought why!? Bird Jones. too many lens to find a good image. As a Optical ONLY scope it's pretty good, of coarse after fixing everything that fell off the cheap mount!!! Then my daughter gifted me a 8" Dob and wow. But the weight is tough on me after my stroke. I find I am using my powerseeker more but I know I can't do anything with pictures. You spent a lot of time doing this video and I learned tons! Thank you and can't wait for the next! Cheers mate!
The Dobsonian is really the true winner when it comes to ease of use, price, and quality. But as you say, they can get heavy and awkward. I have to add many handles to every one that I update. Some people keep them on a rolling cart. Some people have opted for the ones that are on sliding struts that elongate out.
Perhaps you glossed over achromatic and apochromatic lenses because they have seldom been used in telescopes? Still a fun trip down someone's memory lane
Hello, I have the 6" version from Celestron Bird Jones construction at home. I am in Denmark, if you drop me a mail i can send some pictures of it. I bought it 30 years ago from a high school, and it has just been in storage, I recently found it again, it was well packed and the main mirror still looks greeat. But i have not tried it for astronomy yet. br Kenneth,
Suggest that when you discuss a new idea you explain immediatetly what the idea is and not "we'll get into that in a while..." and then go down a dozen rabbit holes. Tell me what it is and if i wanna stay for the rabbit holes i will. But right now i am not.
Thank you for your honesty. I actually trimmed between 5 and 10 minutes off of this after some feedback from early reviewers. I had tons of really cool info that, in the end, didn't advance the core story.
@@AstronomyGarage you are quite welcome and your intelligence shows in your ability to adapt and learn. You just learned a great lesson from someone who's done this for a very long time well before social media and earned a sub! :-)
It isn't that hard to make parabolic mirror out of piece of glass, amateurs telescope builders do that But I would like to try something like this to make telescope th-cam.com/video/_8sd9UgjXLE/w-d-xo.html True, it isn't exactly ideal, but... using something more circular than lid from trash-can would surely help.
This was a wonderful watch. Thank you. I hesitated as it was almost an hour long, but I'm really glad I did.
I'm not a dedicated enthusiast at all, but I did see some negative reviews about Bird-Jones scopes about 10 years ago, when my interest in astronomy was rekindled. In the end I went for a Celestron 130 Newtonian for about £150, which enabled me to see some comets, asteroids, and show passers-by on the street the planets. I don't know if I would have gone for a Bird-Jones, but if I had, I would have known so much more about the astronomers behind the design.
I've since not really used the Celestron a lot, as it's too heavy to carry around, almost impossible for me to transport to dark-sky sites, is not very sturdy, and I live in central Edinburgh which limits visual targets.
I've been happy to observe the night sky with wide-field optics, and binoculars, from the city, developing ways of making the most of the skies we've got. One of the things that I find most rewarding is looking up, and connecting with those who looked up and wondered in the past, thousands of years ago, or just decades.
Thank you for your honest feedback. When I saw the video getting longer and longer, I thought about breaking it up into parts, but there wasn't a good "natural" breaking point location. I know a few folks from Scotland and they've told me of the ever-changing weather there. Speaking of wide-field telescopes, my next big long video is about one of the most famous wide-field telescopes - the Astroscan.
What a wonderful video on several pioneers who paved the way to what I consider the world’s best hobby! Thank you Reflactor for all the work and effort you put into this! P.S. I love the new name, Astronomy Garage.
I'm glad you liked the video. I'm putting a lot of effort into making content about all aspects of telescopes. I'm trying to make it more than just hobby related - there's a lot of history and technology that's fascinating! The new name has really helped - it was frustrating that not even a single one of my videos showed up on a "Reflactor" search.
One of the best astronomy history documentaries I've seen in a long time. I'm very impressed with how much time and effort you dedicated to this video.
Thank you. That means a lot! I'm glad you found it enjoyable. It was certainly a passion project.
Very captivating - so I must have found it entertaining, informative and enjoyable. The short-comings you identified may have, in effect, increased its attractiveness so don't worry too much about re-polishing the mirror. Thank you for your work and enthusiasm. Isle of Lewis, Scotland.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! This video was a a labor of love to make. I was able to meet a lot of interesting people. And I think you're the first comment that I've ever gotten from Scotland!
Thanks so much for all the effort in making this video! I love hearing about the history behind all-things telescope related.
Thanks for watching!
Great research effort. Just watched an Ed Ting video were he talked about the Bird-Jones telescope.
This is an excellent video! Your introductory twenty minutes are an entertaining elementary history of the invention of telescopes, drawing the viewer into your wonderfully researched history of the Bird-Jones (or Jones-Bird-Bowen) telescope design. You have made the history of a somewhat misused and maligned telescope design into a fascinating human and technical story.
Thank you for the feedback. I came very close to removing the entire compressed telescope history to make the video shorter. Instead, I put a "jump point" to allow people to skip. I consider myself very lucky that I was able to interview people that knew the inventors.
What you did just there is an act of love and dedication. I thank you for your work and, of course, forgive any continuity errors and the microphone thing. Thanks for sunny Catalonia
Thank you for the kind words. This video was definitely a passion project. I learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people.
This is impressive research and presentation. Your channel never fails to entertain, but your respect for the people in the hobby and the designers really comes through your delivery. It elevates the youtube experience for me. In gratitude, Don Williams, Olympia WA
That means a lot to me. I try very hard to keep my videos positive, especially when talking about people who are no longer around.
In the book Telescope Optics they have spot diagrams for Jones and Jones-Bird focal corrector. It's difficult to achieve good performance correcting for three abberations (spherical, coma, and chromatic) at the same time with a simple doublet. The Jones-Bird corrector is a significant improvement over the orginal design. It does a good job with color correction but has problems with astigmatism and field curvature. Enjoyed your video.
Enjoyed the video. Reminded me of the good ole days when we used to build telescopes.
Thanks! I built my first "real" telescope in the 1990's. It was a 6 inch Dobsonian from Richard Berry's book Build Your Own Telescope.
Thanks for the many hours you put into this. Worth the wait.
I'm glad you found it worthwhile. Thank you for watching. Clear skies!
Best video about this rare optical design! Very well researched! Thank you very much. I think, Ed Ting will like it too👍😎
Thanks! Ed Ting is one of my heroes - I would be honored if he watched this. :)
Amazing presentation on a fascinating segment of telescope history! Your passion and enthusiasm for this topic really shines in this video. A+ John!
Thank you for the kind words. It was definitely a labor of love.
Great story! Very interesting and well put together! Thank you! It would be great to hear more of those from you! 😎💪🏾🙏
My next few videos will be shorter practical repair videos. I have another long one in the works.
Thanks for all your research and work making this video! Despite Bird-Jones (Bird-Bowen-Jones FC) telescopes being common and popular, I am surprised that virtually no one in our club is familiar with this optical design (nor even the name). I often find myself explaining these, but without my knowing the back story. Now I can thank you for that! Now when I see a new member carrying one to one of our meeting or star parties, I can tell the story. Thank you!
Thank you for the kind words. The Celestron 127EQ is massively popular, but I don't think many people call it a Bird-Jones. There's usually at least one for sale every day here on the Facebook Marketplaces, sometimes more than one.
Nice work! I didn't notice any quality problems. I enjoyed the story and learned plenty.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story!
Really amazing video! I don't know what subpar editing skills you are referring to because it was really well put together.
I meant to watch a few minutes now and save the rest for later but it's 2:17am and yes...I started watching almost an hour ago. Very cool presentation.
People ask me about telescope recommendations all the time and I made the mistake of recommending the Powerseeker to someone about a decade ago, not fully understanding what a Bird Jones telescope was or the variation of the bird-jones that the powerseeker was. I eventually got him oriented with it but it was definitely not beginner friendly. Since then, I've been telling beginners to stay away from it because it could be a total hobby killer. Nowadays I recommend tabletop dobs and small refractors for beginners.
Great work and clear skies!
Thank you for the kind words. My editing was super choppy on this, almost like I was Max Headroom at some points. I wish I knew what I did special for this video because a lot of folks are watching the whole thing (my plan was to originally break it in half, but I couldn't find a good natural break point). Table-top Dobs are a fantastic start. Clear skies to you too.
@@AstronomyGarage The amount of work you put into the research shows and people can tell. I love documentaries and you really pulled me in.
I've been working on a topic for the last 4 months or so but can't get the video to flow properly. I need to take some inspiration from you.
@@Naztronomy I can confess that this Bird-Jones video had several incarnations. About a week before publishing, I knew nothing about Thomas Bird except for his name and where he worked. A genealogy friend found an email for his daughter. I tried it and to my shock, it was her. We had a good phone call and she told me his life story. I'd written the main outline months ago, but the Thomas Bird parts were added in the last few days before publishing. As you develop your video, you'll find where it needs extra stuff added. I know you can do it - good luck!
@@AstronomyGarage Oh that's awesome! Glad you were able to get that information in just in time.
And thank you 😊
Can't overstate how much I enjoy your channel and videos man. Thanks so much!
Thank you for the kind words! This one has been top of my list for a couple of years, but I wanted to handle it very carefully since the folks involved were no longer around. Clear skies!
Another great video! I'll admit I prefer restoration and repairs videos, but this one was really interesting too. Thanks for all the work you took to make this!
Admittedly, the restoration/repair videos are much quicker to make. I may stick with those for a while.
Great video. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As an aeronautical engineer I am familiar with RT Jones work and career with NACA. I never associated his name with the Bird Jones telescope, which for me was ironic as I have owned on for over 20 years celestron 114. I never had an issue with the scope once I learned to remove the corrector lens before collimating it. Thanks for all the efforts.
A fellow aero engineer! I'd heard about his swept wing work off and on through the years (I even used to work with a guy that knew him in the 1990's). However, I was blown away when I learned of the connection. Lots of fun researching it.
Awesome video! I would love to see how you collimate these, especially the Bowden Bird Jones/ FC as an owner of one. Also more information/demonstrations on how the design works optically and why it is so sensitive to tilt and misalign, what does it look like with anw wothout the corrector, what dows it looknlike when it is misaligned etc. would be very interesting! Thanks again for the great video!
Thanks for watching. I have a long video planned for hotrodding the Celestron 127EQ.
@AstronomyGarage awesome looking forward to it!
Very interesting and informative story. I did notice the production glitches but it did not detract from the video IMO. Another great product John
Thank you for watching. I'm glad it was informative!
This nearly one hour lesson is like a Diamond in a vast dessert. Thumbs up!
Thank you! I tried to make it as short as possible - I actually trimmed about 5 minutes or so off the final length. Sometimes I talk too much.
Super. The first time I ever heard of a Mak-Newt I was standing next to Peter Ceravolo at Stellafane looking at Jupiter thru one of his prototypes, and I remember being far more impressed by it then I was by the Schupmann. Six years later I bought one of Roland Christen's first 10" Maks. I'm standing under it in my icon, and the black tube I'm looking thru is the 105 Traveler I insisted my friend Jim Burnell take on his trip with Richard Berry into Gila National Forest in New Mexico. They were working on an image processing textbook and capturing some images with Berry's Cookbook Cameras. Thanks for blasting me back to my past!
A ten inch Mak-Newt? It must've weighed a ton! Richard Berry seems to know everybody, lol. He actually was helpful in this video (he told me about Robert Cox's role in the TMM#3 article). I built my first Dobsonian back in the 1990's using Richard Berry's book.
That was one of the best videos I’ve seen for a long time! Well worth the effort, and I loved the shirt and hair changes to boot lol!!
Thank you for sharing your passion, and I always look forward to what you are going to do next.👍
Thanks, man! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I also lost about 8 pounds over the span of the video (I'm on a diet). My next deep dive is into the history of the Astroscan (I've developed a way to service it despite it being considered unservicable).
@ cool, look forward to that vid, and maybe you’ll lose a few more pounds as well. Good luck!😀👍
I knew a small part of this story but not this detailed. Thank you for bringing it to us. Good research. I’ve looked for a Vega 6 for years with no luck. One of our Astro neighbors almost bought a Vega 8 but he backed out @ the last minute. The $$ too high. Your video inspired me to take out my G-8N more often. Thanks. Clear skies.
If I may ask, what were they asking for the Vega 8 inch at the time? I've heard mention of insanely high prices.
Absolutely fascinating, great work
Thank you for the kind words - I'm glad all the research proved useful.
Thanks so much for the video! Fantastic job! Can't wait to see more! 🤓
Thanks! I have a few more "big" videos planned. Should be fun.
I loved this! Thank you for an extremely well researched and entertaining presentation.
Thank you for watching!
Fascinating story. Thank you so much for going through all the research and putting it together.
This was definitely a passion project. I'm glad you enjoyed the story.
Simply put, perfect, my friend. I was eagerly awaiting it. 🔭😊
Thank you for the very kind words! Believe it or not, but I cut about 10 minutes out of the original edit - and it was still almost an hour!
Great vid, cheers for the info. These men were absolute geniuses...a blind optical engineer ! Just wild...
Thanks. I was astounded when I learned about that. Thomas BIrd's children are very proud of him, and rightly so.
Awesome video! You’ve nailed the documentary format. I don’t know too many youtubers that can keep my interest for a whole hour and leave me wanting to go straight into the next video. Great work!
You should consider reaching out to media companies that produce great documentaries. Imagine what you could do with professional level production input.
Thank you for the kind words! I think my subjects would probably be too niche or "specialty" to interest any of the big companies. It's a fun thought experiment, though. :)
Thank you so much, this was great. The content is so wonderful that any production limitations do not detract at all.
Than you for the kind words. I was worried that the continuity (shirt colors, haircuts, etc.) would cause problems.
Great deep dive on obscure history. Vega scopes are intriguing. The rename of the Celestron version is too much though.
Way to go! While watching this vid I started to get the feel of how much work you had to put into it. We thank you for your effort! I never like vids but for this one I gently pressed the like button.
Thank you for pushing that Like button (and not smashing it). No need to break it, lol. Clear skies!
A day you learned something is a good day. Today i learned a lot thanks to your efforts and thanks to everyone who helped you. Thank you sir!
This was a gargantuan effort that owes a lot to many people. :)
Great video and lots of information about the Bird-Jones telescopes especially when I still own one of them, the Celestron G8-N. Great work
Congrats on having a G8-N. It's a great telescope!
Wow! What a great video. My first telescope was a Jason Comet catcher I received in 1985. It was a 3" scope that I'm fairly sure was of this design with the corrector barlow placed at the end of the focuser tube. It was a fun scope at low power.
Any telescope that gets used is a good telescope. :)
Another great video! That's a cool location to shoot.
Thanks! It was fun.
Fantastic video! I’d be interested in learning more about your sleuthing process someday.
It started with posting questions on the Cloudy Nights forums. That's how I got a link to one of the magazines. Then I bought an entire used archive of Telescope Making Magazines (one of my best investments). You'll find people in the forums of Cloudy Nights that are experts in every telescope imaginable. Great place.
Great! Very good video! Thank you for almost an hour of fine knowlage! greetings from Poland
Wow! Thank you for the comment from so far away.
Thank you so much for making this video. I have a celestron 114 bird jones telescope and all I keep hearing is how bad it is but they do not explain why it’s bad. Thanks for explaining!
Love your channel
Thank you for watching!
Hey John, I’m not sure if you saw my video about a year and a half ago. I also bought the Celestron. 8GN for travelling on a plane unfortunately it was just too big and heavy and I just decided the 150 heritage is about as big as you could go.
I also tested this telescope and also described how this is a real bird Jones telescope
It is very short for its size a little bit heavy, but the alignment of the mirrors was extremely hard and I don’t think I ever guided 100%
I also did a few videos on birds Jones telescopes, and the difference between them
The Celestron 127 to me is not a Burge Jones design. I also call it a barlowed Newtonian
I personally don’t think these cheaper models are correcting anything. I think they just put a cheap two dollar Barlow to magnify the focal length but I truly doubt there is any correction going on.
The Celestron 8gn is a real corrector in its light path and it’s a full 2 inches as I describe in my video
Funny thing is I also found a version made by sky watcher and that video is probably coming out in two months or so as I sounded rare and I forgot maybe sky watcher made a few of these as well and is six and size I’ll be showing it in the near future
Anyway, thanks for going into extreme detail of the history. That was really great. I’m sure a lot of people will like reading that.
In the end, I found if you can align the mirrors near 100% the images are fairly good, but I think a more modern parabolic mirror, reflecting telescope is probably the way to go
Cheers
I'm with you on what is better. The Bird-Jones was ultimately a "poor mans" SCT or Mak-Cass, but prices and options have changed dramatically since back then. I'll take a parabolic any day. However, the Celestron G8N was surprisingly good - admittedly the previous owner had gone to the trouble of collimating it for me. I didn't have to do that.
For what it's worth, I didn't read the entire response that I got from Celestron outloud, but they also say it is a combination barlow and spherical correction doublet. I have no way to prove it though.
I am very curious about your SkyWatcher Bird-Jones!
does the Powerseeker even contain the Bird-Bowen improvments? It could just be a Jones FC design.
great video, thanks for taking to time to document these stories
According to the communications that I received from Celestron, it is both a Barlow and a corrector.
Really great video!!
The algorithm provided me with this video today - and I am completely astonished why. How could the algorithm know that I have a telescope standing in my living room, ok there are other astronomy channels on my regular watchlist...
However, what the algorithm couldn't know...
I have a red Tasco 8V since about 1986. I always knew it was a corrected spherical newtonian, but I assumed it had a Schmidt plate in the front, little did I know about the exact optics! Thank you for this great technical and historical video!
Now I only need a good advice on how to carefully clean the front glass plate. It has been a bit cloudy for many years, but I was always afraid to touch it in any way, assuming that it was a carefully manufactured Schmidt plate. Now knowing that it is "just" an optical flat which in the worst case should be replaceable I will definitely put some effort into its cleaning and restoration.
Haha, I'm glad the video matched with your telescope! It's a small world. I cleaned that very glass plate with rubbing alcohol and photographic lens wipes.
Thanks for all the effort, very interesting!
Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad it was interesting.
Great interesting content. Thanks!
Thank you for watching!
Thank you for the amazing videos
Thank you for the kind words!
25 years ago, at of all places Big Lots, I came across a short tube Tasco on clearance for $50 or so. I impulse bought it only to find it was anything but wide field. I grew to hate it and couldn't get rid of it fast enough. It was the exact Tasco in your video. To my astonishment, someone in the Northeast US quickly bought it for what I paid plus shipping, which was almost as much. Maybe they knew something I didn't.
That's a very interesting story! You got quite a deal on it. They sell for about $170 these days if in good shape.
Ich hatte mich immer schon gewundert, warum man nicht statt der großen Schmidt- Platte einen kleinen Korrektor im Teleskopauszug baut. Wahrscheinlich wegen der Kollimatiionsproblematik. Vielen Dank für diesen ausführlichen Bericht.
Excellent video. Very interesting
Thanks!
thank you so much... a very very interesting and informative video...
Thank you for watching!
Lots of good information. Thanks
Thank you for watching!
Maybe Celestron's 127EQ is the most easily manufacturable as an accurate scope, of all the designs mentioned? Which is easiest to use for someone new to the hobby?
Absolute awesome historical and educational video, well done
Easiest scope to use would be a refractor scope on an alt-az mount with slow motion controls. And if it's for someone with no experience, I highly recommend one of Celestron's StarSense scopes that uses an app and camera on a phone to find and target objects.
@@millenialfalcon8243 Sorry, I specifically meant within the set of scopes (or any using the same design) that was discussed in the video
@ivolol Within the Bird-Jones type, I would say none are good for beginners. As he mentioned, if the corrector is placed before the 2nd mirror, alignment is extremely difficult.
If it is placed in the focuser, like the 127's, it is difficult for beginner's to collimate (aligned the optics) because it usually requires removing the corrector from the focuser, which requires removing the focuser from the scope. And, even then, the image is considered poor.
@@millenialfalcon8243 That's my experience too. Quite often I help out beginners who have purchased Celestron PowerSeeker 114 or 127 scopes. I'll remove the corrector from the focuser, carefully collimate it and carefully put the corrector back. But even afterwards, the spherical aberration is horrible! I liken it to watching the Enterprise viewscreen at warp! Once, I thought I must have put the corrector doublet in backwards, so I reversed them and checked again. Nope, worse! So I rechecked collimation and put them back in the original orientation. I have the impression Reflactor thinks the views from these scopes aren't too bad. What am I doing wrong???
Brilliant, really enjoyed this.
Excellent video so interesting!
Thank you for all of your assistance!
The Carson demonstration scope was a great idea.
Might you try stopping down the Celestron a half inch at a time to 3"?
The primary might be fl=444.5mm at F/3.5.
Thnx
L
I plan to eventually have a video that "hotrods" the 127EQ.
Excellent research!
Nice to hear from you! Thank you - glad you liked the video. By the way, the video was supposed to automatically make an audio-dubbed sound track in almost every non-English language, but their system seems to have crashed on my video.
Very interesting as i get older anything about WW2 becomes fascinating.
I was pretty fascinated by it. There's a lot more that RT Jones worked on if you do a Google search. He was a fascinating guy.
Great job! Ignore the trivial criticism! The information is priceless! Thanks!
Thank you for watching. I'm happy to finally get some historical info out there about these telescopes and the inventors. Admittedly, I knew nothing about any of these guys when I started.
WONDERFUL VIDEO! THANK YOU.... YES, CELESTRON EQ127 is an excellent entrée telescope.... and yes.... it should be named differently.....I suggest JONES BIRD BOWEN FC..... GREAT VIDEO... THANK YOU!
Thank you for the kind words. It was a fun history to research.
Great video! Many thanks for sharing this. My first scope back in 1981 at age 16 was a Tansutzu 114mm with a focal length of, right you guessed it, 1000mm. Like the 127 Powerseeker it had the barlow doublet in the focuser, so not a real deal Bird Jones. Orange tube, wobbly equatorial mount, crappy eye pieces (Kelners or Huygens I believe). Cannot say it was a great scope, and that's an understatement, but the moon was ok. I particularly remember a lunar eclipse I observed with it in 1982. I swapped it out for a much better small Vixen newtonian on a Super Polaris mount.
Sounds like plenty of good memories, but the upgrade in telescopes was a good move.
@@AstronomyGarage The small Tansutzu did however give me a fascination for catadioptric systems. So upgrade I did with today owning an SCT, a mak-newt, a schmidt-newt (and a couple of refractors for good measure) and the end of the rabbit hole is not in sight yet...
Awesome story. Would be better with a quality microphone.
What do you think of the Orion dobsonian scopes? I have a 8 inch mirror bought 30 years ago.
Orion Dobsonians are fantastic. I always tell people who are looking to buy used, aim for an Orion 8 inch Dobsonian. I have two!
Interesting! I was always under the impression that if you grind a mirror the usual way, with two blanks, one for the mirror, the other on top, with the grinding medium between them, the mirror becomes parabolic. No doubt, the pattern of your hand motions affects it, but you check it periodically with an optical flat, to see how the grinding is progressing.
That's pretty close to how they do it. Step one is to grind it into a perfectly spherical mirror. The next step is to "figure" it toward a parabola which, as you mention, requires special hand motions and patterns. All mirrors start out spherical and then get turned into parabaloids.
@@AstronomyGarage In the 1970s, my best friend was an amateur astronomer, and he described the process. I considered grinding one, but felt intimidated by the time & effort required. Strong's "Procedures in Experimental Physics" described a machine that did it, but I don't think it provided the same quality as hand-lapping. By the way, you go by the name, "Astronomy Garage with Reflactor." Is that a "typo," or does it refer to telescopes that incorporate both reflector & refractor designs?
Along with the Celestron "G8" there was indeed a 6" Bird-Jones called the C150-HD . I own one - a bear to collimate, but pretty good views. I'm still wondering what the purpose of those three set screws are that clamp down on the secondary's central "stalk" - loosening them doesn't appear to allow any movement of the stalk. I ended up loosening the entire metal ring/spider assembly and tilting it until collimiation was achieved with the primary and then tightening all the nuts back up. The scope came with a CG-4 mount at the time. I'm wondering if the G8 did also. They're pretty heavy OTA's.
Thanks for sharing - interesting to hear more details like that. None of my Bird-Jones telescopes came with mounts.
What I've been curious about is if there is room for improvement of the corrector lens set found in the 127's. Could an affordable aftermarket version salvage the poor image quality and make these scopes worthwhile.
I have one on order and expect to be alot more tight than the original. The original focuser is junk
That is an extremely clever idea!
I too have pondered upon this although the scope in question is a Jessops 1100. I bought this because of the unusual mount design, target acquisition is very fast so I can place the eyepiece view in front of a satellites trajectory and let it pass through....anyway the problem was lack of clarity, after a bit of investigation I realised the coatings on the focusing corrector had somewhat deteriorated over time. I took the couplet apart and removed said coatings with acetone, put it back together, colomised and hey presto a functional scope once again. I have wondered whether altering the tube length would allow me to focus without the F/C but this vid suggests not....
I might try, but first I'll polish the couplets lenses better, as you point out this is the weak point.....
Watch the sky ! There's some weird stuff out there !
Ps I did also buy a better scope with a GEM ! Gotta keep learning !
With a video this long, you should mention using this approach to a Cassegrain, like the Vixen VMC 200L Catadioptic
with an 8 " primary and actively in production.
great video did Meade make a Bird Jones type also a FC type?
That's a good question. I never found one in my research, but they might have.
Very nice video.
Thank you for watching!
Did anyone else notice that, shortly before going away entirely, Meade apparently discontinued their great Polaris 130 model, and introduced the "Polaris 127" which seemed to be just a PowerSeeker 127 in blue?
Are you planning to do a video on how to improve the 127 power seeker ? I have one and like to try to make work.
I am! I have quite a few upgrades to "hotrod" one of these. Just need to find the time.
Of course Vixen had their branded 125/1000 BJ telescope. There's info on cloudy nights and it's an excellent performer.
Very well done! You were too easy on the PowerSeeker 127-I’ve never found one that I liked.
LOL, I try really hard to keep my videos positive. Admittedly, I did say that it wasn't best for first-time users... and nobody after that would buy it on purpose. They are very common on the used marketplaces.
I've heard lots of bad-mouthing of the design in general, but I have one of the often-mocked 150mm/1500mm models, this one labeled TwinStar which is a brand I've liked in the past, and I like it a lot.
Beautiful telescope!
Replicating Galileo's discoveries is the goal of the Astronomical League's Galileo program. Fascinating project.
That sounds like a lot of fun!
@@AstronomyGarage After watching the rest of your video, I must compliment you on your diligence and well thought out presentation. You obviously dug deep into the history of telescope design, not just through an internet search, but actually talking to people who lived it. I know this was a herculean project, but you did a great job and it was very interesting.
Yes a very interesting video, i guess the design is now just outdated, in lieu of cheap manufacture of hyperbolic mirrors in newtonians. I did wonder about the initial audio :) I'm glad you cleared that up - must have been a real PINA to lip sync everything up? Maybe this explains why a lot of TH-camrs use radio mic's on their lapels to filter out background noises?
That first 90 seconds required probably 6 hours to get right. It has multiple layers of audio. Some of it is the original background noise, with the volume turned way down.
Geeks will love this, great work.
Thank you. I honestly was afraid that this video was too "deep in the woods" subject-wise. If I may ask, did you skip the compact telescope history? I tried to make that skippable if somebody already knew it.
@@AstronomyGarage I watched the whole thing, I normally don't skip anything. I was auto playing TH-cam videos whilst making dinner in the background, I was keeping your Bird Jones video for an after dinner treat almost. It started auto playing and I was frantically trying to find my phone to stop the casting. The community will appreciate the time you have taken to research and edit, thanks again.
22:30 That's the Tasco 8V a 125mm Jones Bird.
You are correct. I was demonstrating the concept of RT Jones' invention, the corrector/diagonal assembly. Bird and Bowen optimized the doublet, but the layout is the same.
@@AstronomyGarage I have one that I got for $20. I think I have it close to collimated. The steps to do so are a bit involved. A laser can be used but it's difficult aiming at the primary mirror centre with the corrector in place.
Oh, damn you, Flactor! Not in the middle of an Orbital album!
Sigh... Very well, I'll drop whatever I'm doing and watch... 😂
I hated dust, mosquitoes, and other contaminants ending up on the primary mirror of my Newtonians and could not find a Schmidt Newtonian for sale, so I stretched Glad Wrap across the front of my Newtonians and held it on with rubber band to close off the front of the tube. I had to change the Glad Wrap when covered with dust.
So, I eventually bought a Schmidt Cassegrain, which solved that problem. When combined with a 0.63 reducer/corrector and a Hyperstar it became a very versatile instrument.
I have a couple Celestron Bird-Jones type telescopes. Do not like them as I cannot collimate them with a laser collimator.
The GladWrap was a clever solution. Calibrating the new Celestrons (barlowed Newtonians) requires quite a few steps, including removing the corrector lens. Very time consuming.
I just wonder is there any good bird jones telescope still available in the market?
The Tasco 8V and Celestron G8N show up from time to time on the used markets (CloudyNights, AstroMart, etc.)
I enjoyed the optics history… but the video was a bit long and i am less interested in the not optical history. Will i watch more of your videos, sure. Thanks for sharing your love of this hobby.
I appreciate your honesty. I thought about breaking this into two parts, but that would've relegated the entire Bird-Jones section to Part 2. I could've removed the compressed telescope history, but... I figured some people might find it useful. My compromise was the "Fastforward to 20 minutes" part. I still may break it into two parts sometime.
I'm surprised to see that Tasco is still making telescopes. My 1st telescope - a Tasco refractor from 1985 was absolute garbage and I assumed that the company would go out of business due to the low quality of its products.
Keep in mind that these are used telescopes, probably made in the late 1980's or 1990's.
I'd heard of Bird -Jones telescope and usually people say nasty things about them.I might even have had one as I had a Tasco 3"reflector as a youth but other than knowing it used .96"eye pieces I don't know much else about it except that the finder was stopped down and diabolical! Speaking of supersonic flight in the early 1980's we flew from Johannesburg to Luxembourg on a 707 and we refueled at Nairobi and we saw Concorde talking off out of the 707's window .
I've never seen a Concorde off the ground in real life. Sounds cool!
My question is why did TI need optical engineers? I remember them as a chip / computer maker.
Back in the 1960's every company had one foot in the defense industry, even Mattell. I assume that's what Texas Instruments was doing, but whatever it was involved optics?
Oh, one thing. Best mix your narration down to mono. It's a tad left-heavy in this one at the beginning. Quite noticeable on headphones.
Thank you. That's good to know. My audio equipment (headphones, etc.) isn't' the best.
Take the headphones off
My first scope was a 4" reflector which my daughter broke dropping down the stairs when she was 4. Next was my high school loaner a 6" Refactor and I was hooked again, After leaving school I returned it and real life began with 12 hour work days 6-7 days a week. 30 years later I saw the most hated thing on the internet Powerseeker 127 and it was 300$ on sale 125$ and I thought it was a decent scope and I learned all the ins and outs about collimation but cellphone pictures sucked. I thought why!? Bird Jones. too many lens to find a good image. As a Optical ONLY scope it's pretty good, of coarse after fixing everything that fell off the cheap mount!!! Then my daughter gifted me a 8" Dob and wow. But the weight is tough on me after my stroke. I find I am using my powerseeker more but I know I can't do anything with pictures. You spent a lot of time doing this video and I learned tons! Thank you and can't wait for the next! Cheers mate!
The Dobsonian is really the true winner when it comes to ease of use, price, and quality. But as you say, they can get heavy and awkward. I have to add many handles to every one that I update. Some people keep them on a rolling cart. Some people have opted for the ones that are on sliding struts that elongate out.
Perhaps you glossed over achromatic and apochromatic lenses because they have seldom been used in telescopes? Still a fun trip down someone's memory lane
👍👍👍
Dave Trott reviewed a 1970's Mizar CX-150 "Jones-Bird" telescope a few years ago. th-cam.com/video/UfuRwm-sE5s/w-d-xo.html
It's a small world. The person that I almost bought a 16T from was formerly owned by Dave Trott.
Interesting. So they *can* be made very high quality, but the need to mass produce a cheaper alternative has caused... drawbacks. 😂
Yes, indeed. If you can get your hands on a Celestron G8-N, I think you'd be very happy.
Hello, I have the 6" version from Celestron Bird Jones construction at home. I am in Denmark, if you drop me a mail i can send some pictures of it. I bought it 30 years ago from a high school, and it has just been in storage, I recently found it again, it was well packed and the main mirror still looks greeat. But i have not tried it for astronomy yet. br Kenneth,
Cool! Send it my way at: JJ dre ese at ya hoo d o t c o m (I'll let you decypher that).
@@AstronomyGarage Cheers, i send you a couple of pics. br Kenneth
Suggest that when you discuss a new idea you explain immediatetly what the idea is and not "we'll get into that in a while..." and then go down a dozen rabbit holes. Tell me what it is and if i wanna stay for the rabbit holes i will. But right now i am not.
Thank you for your honesty. I actually trimmed between 5 and 10 minutes off of this after some feedback from early reviewers. I had tons of really cool info that, in the end, didn't advance the core story.
@@AstronomyGarage you are quite welcome and your intelligence shows in your ability to adapt and learn. You just learned a great lesson from someone who's done this for a very long time well before social media and earned a sub! :-)
Al Bowen died at 48? That is way too young. Also, he looked mature for his age, like really mature. Maybe I heard his age wrong.
It isn't that hard to make parabolic mirror out of piece of glass, amateurs telescope builders do that
But I would like to try something like this to make telescope th-cam.com/video/_8sd9UgjXLE/w-d-xo.html True, it isn't exactly ideal, but... using something more circular than lid from trash-can would surely help.
I will say that grinding your own mirror is very time consuming.
Avoid these telescopes