This month, very active poster to our forum,Garyth64 has provided this image of his favorite classic to start the June thread. Gary had this to say when I asked him about the scope.
"I had a hard time deciding which of my telescopes to highlight here. Although I have had many classical scopes, I have always loved the homemade ones. I decided on my 8" f/3-f/18 Gregorian.
Why a Gregorian? I felt that with its concave mirrors, it was something I could make. After having many discussions with some members of the Detroit Astronomical Society, and mainly Tom Waineo, we settled on a f/3 primary. I began grinding the 8" mirror during the summer of 1968.
I had trouble getting a good curve on the f/3 primary, and Tom Waineo took the mirror back to Boston with him, where it would touch it up. Tom also generated a 2-1/2" secondary with a RoC of 11.5". I polished the finished the secondary using a null test.
By 1970, the scope was done and the optics were mounted in a sonotube. The back plate was made from 3/4" plywood. Very crude, but it all worked, and gave some pretty good views.
Because of life events, the scope was dismantled and the optics were kept in a box for about 30 years. In 2012, I remounted the optics into a aluminum tube, and made new cells for the secondary and the primary.
The primary mirror suffered a few chips on its edges over the years. They weren't very large, but could easily be seen with looking into the scope. So last December I decided to make a new primary for it. I ground and polished another full thickness mirror and kept its f.l. within 1/2" of the original. I've made other mirrors and they came out very good, but this f/3 curve for me started to take up too much of my time.
I asked Mike Lockwood if he would finish the mirror, and he said yes. Thanks Mike.
So this picture shows my Gregorian in 2012 on one of my homemade mounts:"
Great looking build Gary.Thanks much for sharing this with us!
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