Telescope Reviews: Post your home made scope

· Get a Cloudy Nights T-Shirt

· Submit a Review / Article

Click here if you are having trouble logging into the forums

Privacy Policy | Please read our Terms of Service | Signup and Troubleshooting FAQ | Problems? PM a Red or a Green Gu… uh, User

You are not logged in. [Login]

Entrance · Main Index · Search · New user · Who's Online
FAQ · Calendar

Equipment Discussions >> ATM, Optics and DIY Forum

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | (show all)

rguasto
professor emeritus

Reged: 11/18/10

Loc: Long Island, NY

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Larry Silvestri]
#5719927 - 03/08/13 07:22 AM Attachment (75 downloads)

4" F10 with carton mirror

Post Extras:

droid
rocketman

Reged: 08/29/04

Loc: Conneaut, Ohio

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Larry Silvestri]
#5719930 - 03/08/13 07:25 AM

Awesome scope, with a curved spider and small secondary , it ought to approach apo like images.

Post Extras:

1Old Timer
journeyman

Reged: 01/13/13

Loc: Loveland, CO

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Larry Silvestri]
#5720245 - 03/08/13 10:43 AM

My first scope was a homemade 3" Edmund reflector made from a kit by my father as a Christmas present five days before my 11th birthday. It was built from a $29.95 kit that essentially had a 3"primary, a secondary and two Plano-convex lenses to make a 1"FL Ramsden eyepiece. The vague instructions were on a single sheet mimeographed page. The telescope building learning curve was quite steep for my Dad to say the least.

Living in SE Penna.,Edmunds wasn't too far away. Their retail store had orders of magnitude of more "stuff" than their catalog. Going there was like going to a candy store. I think my first purchase was a set of lenses to make a finder for my homemade 3" Reflector along with a 10 lens experimenters kit. Sorry for no pictures, they didn't have digital toys and computers back then in 1957.

Best Christmas present ever!

Post Extras:

mikey cee
Postmaster

Reged: 01/18/07

Loc: bellevue ne.

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: 1Old Timer]
#5720474 - 03/08/13 12:51 PM

Oldtimer I got my 3" Edmunds a few years later already built for $29.95!

Another oldtimer Mike.

Post Extras:

Larry Silvestri
member

Reged: 01/29/13

Loc: Michigan City, Indiana

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: droid]
#5722181 - 03/09/13 12:09 PM

Quote:

Awesome scope, with a curved spider and small secondary , it ought to approach apo like images.

Thank, Andy. I set it up last night at the Michigan City Library and first time public viewers had no trouble seeing the red spot, Ganymede as a disk, and detail in Jupiter's belts. Of all my scopes this 6in-f12 Newtonian has the sharpest image. It resolves better than my old 8in-f11 Newtonian; both have under 15% obstruction and curved spider. The difference is that I rouge-polished this 6" mirror till my green laser pointer penetrated the surface without a trace. Now I am a believer that, while general surface accuracy is important, the quality of the polish is equally important.

Post Extras:

droid
rocketman

Reged: 08/29/04

Loc: Conneaut, Ohio

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Larry Silvestri]
#5722205 - 03/09/13 12:19 PM

It almost reminds me of Gary Seroniks " The Big Red One: My Optimized 6-inch f/9 Reflector "

Glad it works so good. I was always going going to make one, but alas it never happened

If you would like to read Garys article:
http://www.garyseronik.com/?q=node/141

Post Extras:

gsharper13
super member

Reged: 06/14/07

Loc: Loves Park, IL

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: droid]
#5725230 - 03/11/13 04:58 AM

Here are a few to start.

Post Extras:

gsharper13
super member

Reged: 06/14/07

Loc: Loves Park, IL

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: gsharper13]
#5725231 - 03/11/13 04:58 AM

Post Extras:

gsharper13
super member

Reged: 06/14/07

Loc: Loves Park, IL

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: gsharper13]
#5725233 - 03/11/13 05:02 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/gsharper13/IMAG0240.jpg

Edited by gsharper13 (03/11/13 05:03 AM)

Post Extras:

Chuck Hards
sage

Reged: 05/03/10

Loc: The Great Basin

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: gsharper13]
#5726841 - 03/11/13 08:53 PM

I found a few pics of past efforts, will keep looking for old photos I haven't scanned yet.

10" all-fiberglass Dobs I built in the late 80's to early 90's.

My "Woodshop" Dob scopes from 1998:

Post Extras:

wiserman
member

Reged: 03/04/13

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Chuck Hards]
#5727021 - 03/11/13 10:27 PM Attachment (28 downloads)

meade Etx60 lens reversed in meade etx dewcap.
meade ds90 tube with 2" meade focuser.

Folded mirror scope mod to night vision 8mm camcorder via standard eyepiece reflectors, extention tubes and a
25mm x 130mm achromat to refocus

Post Extras:

Dick Jacobson
scholastic sledgehammer

Reged: 12/22/06

Loc: Plymouth, Minnesota, USA

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Chuck Hards]
#5727619 - 03/12/13 08:29 AM

Beautiful fiberglass scopes, Chuck! I'll bet they were lightweight too.

Post Extras:

Chuck Hards
sage

Reged: 05/03/10

Loc: The Great Basin

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Dick Jacobson]
#5727634 - 03/12/13 08:41 AM

Quote:

Beautiful fiberglass scopes, Chuck! I'll bet they were lightweight too.

Thanks Dick!
Some were lightweight, some weren't as light as they could have been, depending on the primary mirror and accessories the individual owners wanted. For example, some of them had 2" thick primary mirrors from Intermountain Optics and heavy-duty Novak cells, some had that heavy, 8x50mm finder that Edmund used to sell in those days. Each had different counterweighting requirements. Any needed balance weight was in the form of lead shot that was over-laminated into the scope interior. Production numbers reached double-digits before the birth of my daughter put a damper on telescope making temporarily.

I contacted S&T at the time, when Roger W. Sinnott was editing the Gleanings dept. IIRC, he liked the scope but felt that making fiberglass patterns and molds didn't have enough appeal to the average ATM, so the article was never written.

Post Extras:

Chuck Hards
sage

Reged: 05/03/10

Loc: The Great Basin

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Chuck Hards]
#5727796 - 03/12/13 10:19 AM

Incidentally, the Woodshop scopes have felt-lined, clamping tube rings made from thick sheet PVC using a router. I mentioned them in another thread.

Post Extras:

DanWray
member

Reged: 10/11/06

Loc: Denver, CO, USA

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: Chuck Hards]
#5797756 - 04/14/13 01:17 AM Attachment (21 downloads)

My Carton 80mm f15, Zebra wood tube, dew shield WWII 105mm artillery shell, brass on finder sink drain.

Post Extras:

DanWray
member

Reged: 10/11/06

Loc: Denver, CO, USA

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: DanWray]
#5797759 - 04/14/13 01:19 AM Attachment (14 downloads)

another shot

Post Extras:

tcmzodiac
professor emeritus

Reged: 11/11/11

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: DanWray]
#5797824 - 04/14/13 03:18 AM

Post Extras:

titanio
sage

Reged: 02/15/09

Loc: Alicante, Spain

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: tcmzodiac]
#5801659 - 04/15/13 10:24 PM

Hi

Here is my Convertible Newton 16" f4 to Cassegrain 16" f20, this is the Newtonian version on a new CPC mount, the Cassegrain version now is mounted on a Titan mount.

Regards
Toni

Post Extras:

mikey cee
Postmaster

Reged: 01/18/07

Loc: bellevue ne.

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: DanWray]
#5802273 - 04/16/13 10:23 AM

Very uptown looking. Plus ingenious design too.

Mike

Post Extras:

John Jarosz
Astro Gearhead

Reged: 04/25/04

Loc: Chicago area, IL

Re: Post your home made scope new

[Re: bremms]
#5804458 - 04/17/13 12:12 PM

Quote:

Might leave the tube bare. I was going to try and anodize the the cells but the lens cell is 7075 and 7075 does not anodize really well. Bare it is for now, I have a couple tubes that might get powder coated.

Marc,

Nice work, Right after aluminum is machined it will easily buff out to a chrome-like finish. If you wait too long the natural anodizing will make buffing difficult.

Just a thought.

John

Post Extras:

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | (show all)

Extra information

4 registered and 22 anonymous users are browsing this forum.

Moderator: ausastronomer, richard7

Print Thread

Forum Permissions
      You cannot start new topics
      You cannot reply to topics
      HTML is disabled
      UBBCode is enabled

Thread views: 16652

Jump to

CN Forums

Home

Cloudy Nights LLC
Cloudy Nights Sponsor: Astronomics