Hi,
I actually have a Springfield Telescope Mount.
It is unassembled, but all pieces are here.
It allows the user to sit in one place and move the mount, instead of having to change position.
The following is from Guy Brandenburg, American University, Washington, DC, American Telescope Club, now in Chevy Chase, MD. "After some consultation with Texereau and the newest edition of the Ingalls ATM consultation. . . It looks almost exactly like the sketches Porter made of the hand-driven springfield mount; the only difference is that the eyepiece comes out at a different angle and has a star diagonal. Also, instead of the ball weight on the end of a curved rod, it has a cylindrical extension tube with a weird counterweight that reminds me of one of those evil crows' masks in the insane Breughel
paintings of Hell. . . .judging by our crude measurements of the photos, my guess is that it might be around f/4.5. It has a very nice
machined finder, and worm drive for slow motion. It stands on a pier and pedestal. . . . His estimate is that it weighs several hundred pounds. It has wheels. He thinks the pedestal is about 3 feet tall, and stands on a foot that is a few inches tall. There is a box with machinery under the mount itself. If you have never seen diagrams or pictures of a Springfield mount, the
idea is that the eyepiece is located exactly at the axis of the equatorial mount, and so the observer never has to move, no matter where
the scope is pointed. There are diagrams both in Texereau and in ATM, volume 1 (new style).
I have pictures but do not know how to post them to this site. |