The Legendary Questar 3.5" Telescope

[W9TR]

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth"

I was in first grade when JFK made that speech, the space race was in full gear and I became very interested in Astronomy. When I was older my parents gave me a small refractor one year for Christmas. I think it was from E.J. Korvettes. I could see the moon, Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings. When I was in junior high, I started to see magazine ads for this amazing Questar 3.5" Telescope. I used one at Northwestern University. I had never seen or used anything like it. Ever. It was beautiful and functional.

Werner Von Braun had a Questar.
So did Arthur C. Clarke.
Johnny Carson and Barry Goldwater owned Questars.
The Smithsonian has one on display.
The first pictures of the earth taken from space were taken with a Questar telescope.

These Questar ads were speaking - TO ME!!! Beautiful pictures of the moon, galaxies and nebulae were featured in these ads - things I had no hope of seeing in my modest instrument. But alas, well placed hints to my parents produced no fruit - a $1000 telescope was simply out of reach for our family.

I decided I'd be a better engineer than astronomer, and I kind of forgot about the little Questar that had made such an impression on me.



Fast forward a lot of years and my Questar 3.5" finally found me!

Made in 2003 in New Hope, PA from all USA made components, this Questar 3.5" became available locally as part of an Estate Sale. I have completed the initial cleaning and the scope is in really good shape.

It truly is "an observatory in a box" as vintage ads clearly state.



The quality and craftsmanship are evocative of a fine piece of audio gear. There are actually a lot of parallels to the venerable McIntosh MC275. Both became popular in the '60s are still in production today. Each has been improved over the years but retains the soul and character of the original. Like my MC 275 this little telescope is a keeper.

The first line of the Questar Warranty and Service Policy reads:

"We invite you to inspect a Questar at our offices in New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA where you are always welcome."

Indeed...

Tom

[chessman]

Tom, that is too cool. CONGRATS!!

[W9TR]

Thanks Randy!
First light will be later this evening - the skies just started clearing up.
Tom

[Vintage Pete]

Tom....how cool is that!

[Antonmb]

Beautiful - I also lusted after these when I was a kid.

[W9TR]

Thanks Pete, Tony!

First Light

I woke up early this morning and the skies were clear!

The scope and tripod were easy to move and polar alignment took only a minute.

I live 25 miles SW of Minneapolis in an area with a lot of light pollution. The seeing was just OK last night. The first target was Jupiter. The first thing I noticed was the contrast was really high. The bands were crisply defined in the 16mm EP. The seeing wasn't good enough to use the barlow.

Mars was really small, not much to see there, just a red blob.

The terminator on Venus was clearly defined and easy to see,. A filter would have been a nice addition here.

M42 in Orion looked great in the 32mm EP. I could easily see the four brightest stars in the trampezium, but e and f were not visible.

The moon was a treat - very crisp views with great contrast.

I tried to find the Crab Nebula but struck out. It was pretty close to the moon and I just couldn't find it with the setting circles.

It looks like the RA drive is not working. I can hear a very faint hum when it is plugged in, but it is not tracking. I'll take it apart later today. I'm not surprised since it has never been used.

In summary, a good first outing. I found the controls easy to use and very smooth. I really liked the parfocal Brandon eyepieces and their integration with the finder. After polar alignment the tripod worked pretty well, it took less than 2 seconds for the vibrations to settle out.

Tom

[Formerly YB-2]

Terrific small mak. Your parallel to the MC275 is most apt. Congrats and a great find on a great little telescope.

[W9TR]

Thanks Glenn,
This sure is a small mak with all the benefits and limitations that go along with it. While I've got a few bugs to work out yet, this is already a great addition to the stable. It is just very well designed and executed. I had fun looking at some sunspots with the off axis solar filter this morning.

[Pampero]

Just stumbled onto this. I have a Questar 3.5 as well. I bought it new in 1996 and still enjoy it. Unfortunately, light pollution is a problem in the city and limits what I can see from my backyard, but it works well for planetary observations. I bought a used Meade 8" at one point in a hope to see fainter Messier objects, and indeed it was better than the Questar for that but the little telescope still out-resolved the Meade and was better for splitting binaries and that sort of work.
Plus, the Meade didn't have a leather case!

Beautiful telescope!

[Pampero]

I'll add that mine is a duplex so it foregoes the defining Questar feature (the star chart) but adds the ability to dismount the tube for use as a terrestrial lens. In retrospect, I could have saved some money and gotten more pleasure from the esthetics by buying a "standard" as I've used the tube as a stand alone only once, and that was just to take some test shots.