inspected the refractor

Had a go at Olivia and Brian's little inexpensive refractor telescope.

Found the base damaged. It looked like the telescope OTA had been pushed about (I mean, who wouldn't) stripping the plastic threads on the base shaft. I emphasised that the OTA must be turned by only using the geared knob at the head of the tripod.

I suggested the plastic shaft be glued to the metal base and a retaining bolt added...

Rebuilt the altitude motion control. The original grease had turned to glue! It worked a lot better. Showed how the tension control worked.

Aligned the finder scope.

Optically, I didn't think it too bad.

But it will be hard to aim the thing...

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Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to put it through its paces.