Awakening a Sleeping Giant!

14" Catadioptric Vintage Telescope with Equatorial Mount

 

“All we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a resolve … to show the Universe around us”

-       twisting a quote attributed to Yamamoto!

 

 

This is the celebratory* story of how a ‘sleeping giant’ in the form of a large 14” Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric telescope with an equatorial mount, lying unusable and languishing in a comatose state for the last 8-10 years, was stripped apart, overhauled, reassembled and brought back to life by a dedicated die-hard group of relatively inexperienced amateur astronomers whose only concern was to see it put back to effective use as originally conceived.

[* It is equally celebratory, and transformative, for me on the personal front. As I write this, I look back upon 2023 as one of the most memorable and productive years for me. It was the year when the chronicler in me, deep in sleep for the past nine years, was shaken up and awakened by a few of my persistent well-wishers to return to my comforting hobby of blogging, on a variety of topics, including my extensive travels, and particularly on popularization of science. My output of as many as thirty blog articles in the last nine months alone is testimony to the resounding success of their efforts.]

The Genesis

It was early June this year when I received a query from a young lady teacher in Mysore if I would suggest someone who could repair a telescope.  When I asked her to provide more specific information, she sent me a short video clip* of a 14” Celestron telescope housed in an enclosure. When I asked her what exactly was the problem with it, she simply said that it belonged to her husband’s school and was ‘not working’.  Since I had known her quite well, I messaged her to say that I actually needed to see it first.  It was then that her husband Mr M Athmananda, principal of a local school, contacted me, explained the problem briefly, and requested me to visit his school and look at the telescope myself. The school was in a populated locality in the outskirts of the city, about 15 km away from my home.  While driving me to the school he opened up about how he himself was relatively new to the institution and had ‘discovered’ the existence of the telescope locked up in an elegant enclosure on the top (third) floor of the school. He had no formal science background, did not have any functional knowledge of telescopes, yet he was keen on putting it back into use if possible, and getting it ‘repaired’ if necessary.  It is this concern and attitude that made me pursue the matter further, and all the way to its successful conclusion. In this endeavour, we had the strong support and commitment of Mr R Sundararja Rao, Rotarian and the institution’s chief administrative link, who was apparently unaware of how the facilities went into disuse.

* Here is the video clip I received: 

When I saw the telescope and its accessories, I was rather dumbfounded.  They had been lying around unused, even untouched, apparently for the last ten years at least, collecting dust everywhere, even rusty at some places, with almost all optical components attacked by fungus, and several movable parts jammed, particularly the crucial focuser knob seen at right foreground in the picture below before any clean-up was initiated. In the left foreground of the same picture is an eyepiece fitted to the instrument. Clearly, a major surgery was required, something I couldn’t attempt on my own. While contemplating my next move, I got the enclosure cleaned up and the accessories checked and put back in some order. 

Acquisition

The giant telescope, along with a smaller 8” version of it, also with a full complement of expensive accessories, had been acquired by the institution as a gift from abroad in 2009. The facilities had been set up with unclear objectives, which read, exactly as printed in an attractive pamphlet, as follows:

Below is a plaque at the entrance to the enclosure housing the telescopes: 

It was puzzling to me how any modern-day ‘research’ could be conducted in Astronomy with just a set of telescopes, without other sophisticated equipment such as spectrographs and photometers, and who would be doing this. I couldn’t help speculating that the term ‘research’ made it possible to coin the high-sounding acronym MARS and little else.

Suddenly, I recalled having been approached around 2008, for my guidance on the acquisition of these facilities. I had recommended only the 8” telescope, and definitely not the 14” one, since the latter would be unmanageable for a school in prevailing conditions. They seem to have ignored my views and opted for both.  As I shall narrate later, the facilities were used for some time and later discarded altogether.

Diagnosis

It was easy for me to have advised the institution to approach the original manufacturer’s representative in India and wash my hands of the affair, but knew from experience that this would not solve the problem within a reasonable cost and time frame.  It would also have poured cold water on the interest and enthusiasm evinced by both Athmananda and Mr Sundararaja Rao.  So, I decided to bring in my acquaintance Mr N Bharath from Chamarajanagar who I knew had the kind of skills required in the present situation.  He and I spent several hours examining the telescope thoroughly, identifying the problems and devising solutions.  The major issues were the jammed focusing mechanism and the deposition of fungus and dust on the interior optical surfaces.  It was clear that we needed to undertake a major surgical style operation.  

We decided to postpone further action until our next visit. But, before that, we took a good look at the institution’s 8” catadioptric Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, which appeared to be in much better condition.  It required some cleanup and testing with daytime objects, both done swiftly and successfully on the same day (see picture below).

Dismantling and Reassembling

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be physically present during the next visit, but was in constant touch with Bharath when we decided we needed to strip the telescope tube apart, identify and rectify the problems and reassemble it.  The picture below shows Bharath (on the right) with the telescope tube after it was removed from the tripod and brought down to the ground floor and before being shifted to a clean room for the dismantling and reassembling operations. At centre is Mr R Sundararaja Rao, the chief representative of the administration. 

Bharath obtained some valuable telephonic guidance from an expert he knew in Bangalore and carefully removed the primary mirror assembly.  The cause for the jamming of the focuser, a major irritant, was soon identified and rectified.  He also cleaned its surface, removing much, but not all, of the fungus that had collected.  One of the offending parts was a large blob of silicone that had got deposited on the mirror.  Even to this day we don’t know how this could have got in there unless someone had meddled with the telescope earlier. Here is a picture of the two parts, the primary mirror back  (in the foreground) and the mirror itself: 

Here is a larger picture of the primary mirror, in the foreground (after cleanup):

Next, we were faced with the more important issue of cleaning up the corrector plate on the inside (see picture with drawing below).  It necessitated the unscrewing of the corrector plate holder, pulling it out and doing the job, something that could affect the collimation of the whole set up and require recollimation later in a laboratory set up.  Though I was familiar with the optics of collimation, something that I had done during my research days at the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore long back, I was strongly against meddling with the corrector plate.  But Bharath was feeling more confident, and he was also a better judge of what needed to be done in situ. We discussed how this should be done and then I gave him the green signal. 

To his great credit, Bharath did the job with a considerable degree of success, put the ‘humpty dumpty’ back together and carried out the decisive test of focusing on a daytime distant object triumphantly!  Apparently, there was no significant loss of collimation. It was indeed a Eureka moment captured in the picture below. From left to right are: Mr Sundararaja Rao, myself, Athmananda and Bharath.

Relocating

We had determined that the originally intended location for the telescope, inside a permanent enclosure provided with a retractable flat roof, was not conducive to its effective use and advised the administration to relocate it in an adjacent area, in a fixed place with a movable shed around it to ensure its protection when not in use.  This was fabricated and installed promptly as desired (see picture below, with the telescope permanently located inside the open, movable shed).

Soon after, during our next visit, we stayed on till it was dark enough to put the reassembled telescope to its final test - formation of the images of celestial objects, including the Moon. While this was being achieved, we discovered to our chagrin that the motor drive that performs the continual tracking of any celestial object was not able to do auto-tracking.  Without this the telescope’s utility was highly limited. So, here was another major issue that needed to be tackled. 

At this stage I decided to bring in my other expert, Mr M Krishnamurthy, a longstanding and highly experienced amateur astronomer whom I have known for almost two decades. He had not worked with a big telescope like the one in question, yet he offered to take a look and see what could be done. 

Auto-tracking

Krishnamurthy needed quite sometime to understand the operation of the telescope with an equatorial mount. Once this was done, he tried out the auto-tracking process and confirmed my finding that it was not working.  After some persistent effort he discovered that the hand controller (see figure below) itself was faulty and needed to be replaced. No further work was possible that day.

On the next visit, Krishnamurthy brought the hand controller that he had got with his latest version of the 8” Celestron telescope to see if it worked… and it did! (Later a new hand controller for use specifically with the 14” telescope was purchased and put into successful operation). We thought the problem of auto-tracking was licked. Sadly, it was not, a discovery that came after several frustrating attempts.  So, we were back to square one!

It was then that Krishnamurthy suspected whether he was following the right instrument manual… and determined that he was not! Apparently, the institution had been supplied a manual that did not correspond with the instrument model they had got!  Luckily, he was able to get the correct manual (CGE 1400) online and this definitely solved the problem of auto-tracking, but the instrument was still responding erratically most of the time.

One incidental action was fitting a red-dot finder as a viewfinder in addition to the existing optical wide field view finder.  A relatively recent innovation, this helps easier location of celestial objects, and is nowadays widely employed with small telescopes.

Enter Chiranjeevi

At this stage I decided to bring in a third expert, my longtime associate and protégé, Chiranjeevi, who is now employed in Bangalore and visits Mysore occasionally.  He is something of a trouble shooter and a man for all seasons. When I mentioned to him our successes and failures with the big telescope, he was surprised that we didn’t know about his past association with these very same two telescopes after they were first commissioned by the institution way back in 2009.  He told me that he used to go to the same premises frequently as a willing volunteer and set up shows for students and other groups. He himself was a student at that time and took up not only this work but also the work of generating the publicity it needed, most of it by himself.  As the organizers’ interest waned, his association tapered off and stopped altogether after less than two years.  He welcomed the opportunity to associate himself now with our efforts and resume his tryst with what was now a sleeping giant. Below are two pictures that establish his intimate association with the giant after it was first installed in 2009.

 

On the next visit, sometime in late Dec 23, we tried to address the residual issues with the big telescope.  One of these was a jammed eyepiece holder in the star diagonal unit, which was not allowing us to rotate it and hold it in any direction we wanted for ease of viewing.  It could not be loosened by mechanical means. We were hesitant to apply excessive torque on it for fear of any breakage. Chiranjeevi was however successful in loosening it, after applying a commercially available cleaning chemical called WD40, to remove any dirt on the offending part.  

On the second evening of our collective effort, we hit our second Eureka moment – the successful and repetitive GoTo and auto-tracking operations – though not all the time.  Occasionally it misbehaved! We have known some problems of this type with other GoTo telescopes also, including the ones that Krishnamurthy and I both own. So, we can say with a high degree of confidence that we have succeeded in our efforts at last!  A feeling of elation is justified since we have all worked voluntarily and with the sole intention of serving a laudable cause.

Here are some pictures taken during our latest celebratory visit:

[Chiranjeevi (left) and Krishnamurthy with the revived telescope]

 At work aligning the finder scope: 

[Athmananda (right) and I (centre)]

 [Krishnamurthy pointing at an object, Athmananda looking on]

Astrophotography

Photographing celestial objects, called astrophotography, is one of the most exciting hobbies with a good telescope of any variety. Till recently, this required an expensive SLR camera, mounted at the eyepiece end of the telescope. Nowadays this can be done with mobile smartphone cameras, placed firmly at the eyepiece holder, with an adjustable mechanical frame that holds the smartphone in position to capture the image.

Here is a picture of a part of the (gibbous) Moon captured with the restored telescope:

Here is a picture of part of a quarter Moon that Chiranjeevi had captured during his tryst with the original version of the telescope: 

Here is the Pleiades cluster with the restored telescope:

Below is the Orion Nebula, an easy target for binocular viewing and low power telescopes.  The star field within a rich nebulosity stands out.

Here is Jupiter and its bands, without any of the accompanying Galilean moons:

Finally, ushering in the new year, a video of a gibbous Moon scanned across the field of view presented by the telescope:

What Next?

With so much of human resources, time and expenditure going into the resurrection of the big telescope, its effective future use, along with that of the smaller 8” telescope, needs to be ensured. Towards this end the following actions need to be taken up on high priority by the institutional administration:

• Since any meaningful astronomical research is not possible with the existing facilities, the word ‘research’ may be substituted with ‘education’ in the name of the society.
• Spell out the objectives of the renamed society in clear terms, focusing on providing learning experiences to students, teachers and the general public.
• Identify 3-4 volunteers from the institution’s neighbourhood who are willing to work with the existing facilities and provide night time observation opportunities in the premises of the institution under the guidance and supervision of its principal.
• Provide intensive training to the volunteers in the operation and use of the existing telescopes and accessories using the present group of experts who have been involved in the restoration activities as resource persons.
• Organize frequent night sky shows for interested students, teachers and the general public as frequently as possible, both within and outside the territorial limits of the institution.
• Depending upon their availability, use the services of the present group of experts in recurring telescope shows and related educational activities.
• Provide necessary budgetary support to the principal for the conduct of programmes involving use of the telescope facilities.

Concluding Remarks

My associates and I have enjoyed overcoming a series of challenges, ultimately succeeding in awakening a sleeping giant, and restoring it to its former status.  Now, it needs to be put to active service and not allowed to slip back into its more comfortable sleepy state.