plyscope
sage
Reged: 11/23/06
Posts: 326
Loc: Perth, West Australia
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Well done Tim.
It looks fantastic and I am amazed at how quickly you have progressed. Looking forward to hearing more about your observing experiences and mounting etc.
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Andy
6" f15 refractor
90mm f16.7 refractor
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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It's probably going to be a while, as next week I think I'll be working on the house.
Probably the single most effective factor in getting this far so fast with it is that I've sort of been designing the tube ion my haid on my way to work and back for months now. And it's similar to tubes I've made before.
For my last 9-sided tube, I drew all kinds of plans on the computer, but when i started this one, i realized I didn't have a computer when I built my Springfield in 1981. So, I looked up my old drawings and went that route.
They're really awful drawings, but they help me keep track of what I'm doing as I go. I write the dimensions on the drawings as I make them or change them. So the end result is more a combination of what's in my head and what I've written down. They're about as far from patterns as you can get!
Best thing is that they don't take long to draft up.
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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rwiederrich
Goldfinger
Reged: 11/17/05
Posts: 8300
Loc: Bremerton Washington
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Tim......That looks totally awesome!
And in near record time too. My kind of working...I want to gust get in there and *bust* it out too. I worked very fast on my 10"f/16.......I just don't have my objective yet. 
Kinda like that train that was built over the Alps..when the track was laid they didn't even have a train that could make the journey....but they built the track anyway knowing that someday the train would be invented.... 
You could always set it up as a decorative wooden collum in the livingroom and tell mamma it is for shear asthetics.
Na...she might want to put a potted plant on top of it.... 
Just tell her the truth...you were working on the house and you found it in the attic.. 
Rob
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www.goldmtobservingcenter.com
A great place for amateur astronomers, and ATM's to come and enjoy their hobby.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HomemadeRefractorTelescopes/ My homemade refractor group.
www.vimeo.com/6014031
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Well, it's pretty obvious!
I still couldn't figure out where to put it when I was done, so it's on the dining room table!
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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rwiederrich
Goldfinger
Reged: 11/17/05
Posts: 8300
Loc: Bremerton Washington
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Quote:
Well, it's pretty obvious!
I still couldn't figure out where to put it when I was done, so it's on the dining room table!
-Tim.
Just take it...and be the better for it..
She'll probably fall in love with it too...it's awesome!
Rob
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www.goldmtobservingcenter.com
A great place for amateur astronomers, and ATM's to come and enjoy their hobby.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HomemadeRefractorTelescopes/ My homemade refractor group.
www.vimeo.com/6014031
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drshr
professor emeritus
Reged: 06/09/08
Posts: 672
Loc: Darwin, Australia
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Magnificent!
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Doc
14" F5 DOB.
APM 8" F6 Achro.
APM 105mm F6.2 CF APO.
120/F8.3
150/F5
80/F6.25ED
25x100 Binos.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Hokay, I managed to squeeze off a couple hours this afternoon to make me some temporary rings to use to mount this thing on my NJP tonight (hopefully), so I can try it out.
I got up around 5 this morning and gee-whizzed Jupiter through my NP101is, and the seeing was SO GOOD I just have to have the 6" ready to try tomorrow morning!
Anyway, here are a couple progress pics:
Lens in "cell cell":
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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And here are the rings, just sitting on the tube. The aluminum and poplar thingy in the background against the tube is a dovetail plate I made. It's only 12" long, but it'll do for this trial. I plan to glue up the rings double, so they'll be 1.5" wide, then screw into them to mount the dovetail.
The temporary back plate and focuser are on the right:
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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The "final" mounting system, I'm reckoning, will be about 2 feet long, and have places to mount a couple of barbell weights toward the focuser end so that I can minimize the arc that the focuser swings when moving the scope around.
Okay, back to work!
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Okay, try not to laugh!
I'm definitely going to need weights on the focuser end of the tube!
But I got it together, collimated the focuser (will worry about the lens another time), and so it's ready for the dark.
When Jupiter's up, I should be able to sit on the grass and observe!
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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2
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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KevinP
super member
Reged: 06/25/07
Posts: 170
Loc: Edmonton
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Tim, that really looks fantastic. Congratulations on a beautiful scope. 
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Kev
Sketches
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Antares 200 mm / f5
ATM 82/700 refractor in progress
Bushnell 10x50
Celestron 15x70
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Thanks, Kev!
I've still got a lot of things to do and change, but I've got a couple of long trips coming up, some vacation, and so it'll probably stay like this until sometime in mid August.
I'm hoping to start staring at my eyelids early tonight, so I can get up around 4 or so for Jupiter. Going to leave the scope set up all night. It's been pretty warm and dry here, and it's in my backyard. I don't think anybody will mess with it.
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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rwiederrich
Goldfinger
Reged: 11/17/05
Posts: 8300
Loc: Bremerton Washington
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Tim...that is so awesome...so awesome..beautiful...beautiful.
Rob
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www.goldmtobservingcenter.com
A great place for amateur astronomers, and ATM's to come and enjoy their hobby.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HomemadeRefractorTelescopes/ My homemade refractor group.
www.vimeo.com/6014031
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Well, I've officially gee-whizzed Saturn with it!
Very nice. Almost no false color, but it is there at high mags. Very nice contrast, even though Saturn was only up about 35 degrees when I started.
The real test will come in the morning when I try imaging Jupiter with it using a Pt Grey Flea2 16-bit color digital video firewire camera and Astro IIDC on the mac.
With the 6" f/10, there's just too much false color to get a good color balance on jupiter, so I always shot in green monochrome with it. I'm curious whether I'll have to do that with the f/15.
It was kind of funny viewing with the eyepiece end hanging so far back from the saddle! When i switched from Saturn to the double double, I was only about a foot and a half off the ground, and had to squat on the slope next to the scope. I should have set up farther from the edge! But I've got good polar alignment, so I'm not going to mess with it now...
-Tim.
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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rwiederrich
Goldfinger
Reged: 11/17/05
Posts: 8300
Loc: Bremerton Washington
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Well...come on Tim..take some pix so we can see what you're talking about....
Rob
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www.goldmtobservingcenter.com
A great place for amateur astronomers, and ATM's to come and enjoy their hobby.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HomemadeRefractorTelescopes/ My homemade refractor group.
www.vimeo.com/6014031
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mikey cee
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/18/07
Posts: 3507
Loc: bellevue ne.
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Tim....I kinda' like that 9 sided look over the traditional octagon.....much more pleasing to the eyes.  Mike
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7x35 and 10x50 sears tower binocs, 3" f/10 edmunds reflector, 2.4" f/11.7 manon refractor, 6" f/8 jaegers refractor, "The 8 Ball" 8" f/13.3 brandt refractor, 3" f/15.8 sans&streiffe refractor, 3.1" f/15 selsi refractor(towa 339), 2.4" f/15 sears refractor, selsi 30x30mm spyglass, criterion 5-draw 25x45x75x spyglass(1957), 4.25" f/14.8 tasco 20te.
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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Here are some pics I took this morning while imaging jupiter:
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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too (and that's Jupiter, live, on the laptop)
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
Edited by tim53 (07/12/09 10:09 AM)
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tim53
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 1421
Loc: Highland Park, CA
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three
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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"
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