My observing preference is to use a classic Newtonian on a sturdy equatorial mount. My other (and first) scope is a 6" f/5 Russian Newtonian (TAL 150PM) with very good optics, and built in the robust style of Cave and Criterion. Transportability is not an issue, because I am fortunate to have a dark sky site at home. I wanted more aperture than just 6", and longer focal length, and there are no affordable well-built modern Newtonians with a heavy duty GEM and pier in the 10-12.5" aperture range. This motivated me to seek out a classic Cave scope.

The 10" Cave I purchased in January 2002 has had a total of 3 owners, the owner before me posted information about this scope to this site under "Bill's 10" f/7". It is actually an f/6, built around mid-1979. The scope as I received it had nearly all components in operating condition. Most of my modifications seemed of a minor nature, but I am convinced all had a noticeable effect on the final images observed, and certainly my pleasure in using the instrument. I repainted the OTA, mount, and pier, re-mounted the spider to closer tolerances than existed, shimmed the mirror cell, greased the gears and removed as much play and backlash as I could. I darkened the interior of the OTA, and added black felt to the inside of the focuser tube. I center-dotted the primary to facilitate an accurate collimation with a laser. I also added a manual slow motion control for the declination axis for convenience. Why the blue-green color of the OTA, you ask? It was chosen to match the color of the Zeiss Starmaster planetarium my wife and I saw when we visited the Palais de la Decouverte in Paris during Summer 2001.

The mirror has serial # M-793905, focal length 60.125" produced May 9, 1979. This was exactly the time that Tom Cave, Jr. was in the hospital, very seriously ill. This vintage should suggest that the figure might be suspect. Eventually I may send the mirror off to Bob Royce or Steve Swayze to re-figure and recoat, but for now I want to squeeze the last bit of performance from the current figure. Despite its vintage, the images seem to be good. I routinely observe Saturn at 525x (2.9mm Siebert), with a clean Cassini division, lots of subtle shading on the globe, and even some ring shading structure outside Cassini (no Encke gap yet!) Jupiter is good as well, but I have not logged as much time on it as Saturn. Deep sky is nice, but like Jupiter I haven't exercised it as much in this area as Saturn. It will be fun to observe Mars with the scope this summer.