Cave Optical Super Chromed Deluxe - 10" f/6

5.0 Classic cave 10" telescope

Classic, dream scope, fantastic optics

large, heavy, some backlash in the dec axis

As a youngster I would drool over the ads for the Beautiful Cave telescopes in the earliest editions of Astronomy Magazine. Of course they were out of my league at the time, but I never can forget how "awesome" they appeared in those ads.

A few years ago a local gentleman advertised a 10" reflector on our astronomy groups web page. I emailed him and found out it was CAVE!! I immediately made an appointment with him to see the scope. I was awe-struck as he set the telescope up in the driveway for me. He hadn't used it recently so it needed some restoration. I purchased it from him on the spot.

The model was a 10" F6 Super Chrome Deluxe. In fact it was the first one that was used for taking the picture for the new ads in S&T that December of 1972, as he showed my the letter from Tom Cave describing the reason why his telescope would not be delivered at the promised time. He had all the corresponding letters he had with Mr Tom Cave, which he also let me have in the transaction - even the original wooden crate!!

I could not wait to get this "boyhood dream" telescope home. A little elbow grease and the chromed pedestal and heavy counterweight looked like a show room scope. Both the RA and Dec hand controllers work fine. The beautiful rotating tube assembly is so smooth, and alas the images were breathtaking. I observed Saturn that evening and the image appeared as though I were observing through a mini "hubble". Yes this scope delivers razor sharp images, as most Cave scopes of the time were the standard of excellence.

Recently I made a dobsonian system for the mirror, since it would be a problem to travel with that behemoth of a scope to a star party. The dob is very much user friendly. Cave scopes are everything that they advertised back then, a standard that is surely hard to equal in today's mass market telescope world. This is a real "Classic" and very functional scope as it was, now made easier to use in the dob arrangement.