Lee1219
member
Reged: 09/11/07
Posts: 87
Loc: 88310 N.M.
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Can you believe a city of 52000 people, two astro clubs, a planetarium, a space museum, home of New Mexico Skys, and numerous other sky related things having ONLY 2 books on telescopes in the library... both of which are the same one's; one in the kiddie section the other in the adult area???
Could not believe it ... I really didn't want to spend a lot of monies on books right off the bat; rather make up my mind 100% to the idea of making my own scope, check it out and see how how much hot water I'm in for before taking the final leap. I checked and there would only be me and some books to get the thing going. 
Anybody got a book or two that they would want to sell? 
Thanks
Lee
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Life is not really a box of chocolate ... it's a jar of peppers, what's in your mouth today; you may regret the next.
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BillC
on a new path
Reged: 06/04/04
Posts: 2110
Loc: Washington, USA
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"Can you believe a city of 52000 people, two astro clubs, a planetarium, a space museum, home of New Mexico Skys, and numerous other sky related things having ONLY 2 books on telescopes in the library"
Yep!!!
Cheers,
Bill
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William J. Cook, Chief Opticalman, USNR-Ret.
Founding Editor, Amateur Telescope Making Journal
20-year vet. of Captain's Nautical Supplies, Optics Dept. Mgr.
Optics Machanic, WG11-3306, Ft. Lewis, Tacoma,WA
Yata, Yata, Yata . . .
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qianniu
sage
Reged: 05/05/07
Posts: 465
Loc: Columbus, OH
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The only reason I can think of is that people already have enough to see and do and stacking books in library is simply waste of money. 
qianniu
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Why do the stars in the sky appear as crowded as people on the earth? Why do people on the earth appear as alienated as stars in the sky? - Lyrics of a Chinese song.
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John Jarosz
I'm being watched...
Reged: 04/25/04
Posts: 2193
Loc: Chicago area, IL
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Libraries react to their users. I'm sure they have a "suggestions" method where you can tell them what books you want to see on the shelves.
They also my have an interlibrary loan arrangement where you can get books from other libraries
John
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6" F4.6(w/Paracorr) GEM reflector, 8" F11 Dall Relay Scope
6" F5 RFT Refractor, Garrett Gemini 20x80 LW
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jimmoscheck
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/08/07
Posts: 1058
Loc: Under the SE Michigan lightdom...
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The two astro clubs would be a good place to start. My club has a astro library stocked with books donated by our members. The best way to learn about scopes and how they are made is to see them first hand at a club observing night.
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Jim Moscheck
14.5" f4.3 home built Kriege stlye truss
Stevens primary
"A mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work if it's not open." - Frank Zappa
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Ben Mullin
member
Reged: 08/26/05
Posts: 97
Loc: Lindstrom, MN
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Our club has a library overflowing with donated books as well. It would be worth checking out.
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Chriske
Kijkerbouw Urania
Reged: 08/15/04
Posts: 1953
Loc: Boechout, Belgium
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Why do you want to buy a book when you got Cloudy Nights.....  ..... 
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Chris
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Lee1219
member
Reged: 09/11/07
Posts: 87
Loc: 88310 N.M.
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That's true, you guys/gals are the greatest. Often though, the old brain cloud I am cursed with just can't picture things the way I should; so a picture or two would help. Never did anything like this before and it's a bit intimidating. If there is some possible way to mess things up I'll figure out how to do it.
Lee
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Life is not really a box of chocolate ... it's a jar of peppers, what's in your mouth today; you may regret the next.
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John Hoare
seantoir
Reged: 04/25/04
Posts: 8861
Loc: Area 14, Kildare, Ireland
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If you have the ISBN numbers of the books you want to read you should be able to look for them through the libary using the inter-library loan system. As a member of Cork County Libraries in Ireland I once got a copy of a book that gave information about the Chasseur (a.k.a. "The Pride of Baltimore"), an American privateer during the War of 1812, from a Baltimore library this way when I was researching a magazine article. It only took 2 weeks.
For older books you can use the title, author, publisher, city and year of publication, or some of the above, but the search can take longer.
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John
Watery Glebe
Puddlestown
Co. Kildare
Chaos is the rule of nature
Order is the dream of man
Henry Brooks Adams
IFAS
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JohnG
sage
Reged: 12/16/06
Posts: 357
Loc: Wake Village, Texas - East Tex...
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I can believe it. I live in a town with 70,000 population and one small astronomy club. The local college teaches introductory astronomy and has a nice observatory for students at the college farm. Neither the public library nor the college library has much in the line of astronomy books. I had though Books-A-Million might have something on ATM, but was wrong, nothing but a few picture books and a few star atlases.
JohnG
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John Gerrald
Unitron Model 142
8 Inch f/7 Custom Assembled
8 Inch Celestron/Vixen f/5 Newtonian
6 inch Celestron/Vixen f/5 Newtonian
8 Inch f/2.9 Sky Research Newtonian
Celestron Polaris Equatorial Mount
Celestron Super Polaris Equatorial Mount
Celestron 11 x 80 Comet Hunter Binocuars
Bausch & Lomb 7 x 50 Binoculars
A few vintage eyepieces
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dcoyle
super member
Reged: 10/11/05
Posts: 107
Loc: 7800' New Mexico
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New Mexico does have a decent books by mail program, I used it for a number of astro books, some from other states.
Few towns fund libraries any more.
Re used sales, have you tried ABE books on the net?
Dan
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Lee1219
member
Reged: 09/11/07
Posts: 87
Loc: 88310 N.M.
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The inter library loans would be good if a person knew what to order, but with out knowledge where do you stand? With the help of the fine folks here I did order a book threw Amazon. Now to just wait and see ... It's a shame there is so little exposure to this hobby. Basicalley the trip to the library was an eye opener.  For the kids.
lee
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Life is not really a box of chocolate ... it's a jar of peppers, what's in your mouth today; you may regret the next.
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cocobolo
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/27/07
Posts: 1550
Loc: british columbia, canada
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If you haven't already done so, your local astro club[s] will be a good source. Our local club has several dozen books all donated by our members. However, between the membership I would bet that we have perhaps 1,000 books between us, many duplicated no doubt. Most of us are quite willing to lend our fellow members a book or two to get them going. The best thing is that you get to pick the brains of all the members in the club. And believe me, you will be blown away by how much accumulated knowledge rests between their collective ears! You may well find that the local clubs run telescope building classes, ours does. I can think of at least 20 telescopes built by our guys [and gals] and our club is only about four years old. You need to be well warned though, this is one awfully addictive hobby. Enjoy. 
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Tom Karpf
super member
Reged: 11/18/05
Posts: 162
Loc: Newington, CT
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Lee,
If you gave us some idea what you were looking for we could give you some suggestions.
Also, some idea of what your current level of knowledge is would help us.
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Thomas Karpf
Secretary - Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford
8" f/6.8 homemade Dobsonian with home-made mirror
Dynamax 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain
ETX-90 RA Maksutov-Cassegrain
ETX-70 Achromatic refractor
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DougP
sage
Reged: 06/11/06
Posts: 441
Loc: New Brockton, Al
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Have you checked the libraries of local or nearby colleges and junior colleges? They usually have a good selection of astronomy books. Our own library in a town of about 25,000 population has a good selection of astronomy books, including a couple on optics. I'm lucky I guess. However, I seem to be the only one checking them out of the library. I would meet with the chief librarian and tell him or her of your need for the books. I'm sure arrangments will be made to get what you need. Get on the web and see what books are available, then get the library to obtain them for you. Also, the libraries accept donations of books.
Doug.
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