Fred Ley

Hey, Starbucks sounds good to me because I have an exceedingly low tolerance for cigarette smoke and Starbucks is a smoke free zone. -Fred

George, This was the site that I wanted to mention concerning the Dob tracker base. http://www.equatorialplatforms.com/ -Fred

George, What you need is a Dobsonian tracker. Should do the trick for taking images with a Dob. See this site for an idea. http://www.geocities.com/reaganjj/ -Fred

George, The 18-inch model is certainly easier to manage and move about. I feel that once you obtain one, at some future point you will take a peek at some dim fuzzies and really get excited. I hope that you have dark skies in your area. I once looked at the Moon through a 29-inch Dob with a Coulter mirror many years ago and it was intense. These Dob's just suck in the light, which is why they are called "Light Buckets". -Fred

I have always liked the Obsession line of telescopes. I have a copy of their catalog, which happens to be on a VHS tape, that shows the models they make and the detail that goes into every telescope. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I would like a 25-inch scope. The only issue is with observing objects near the zenith. Either one gets a real tall ladder or waits for the objects to be in a somewhat more comfortable, meaning lower, position in the sky. That will then raise the issue of observing through a thicker layer of atmosphere. So, maybe we divert back to that tall ladder? -Fred

Hi George, There are images of the 40-inch scope, the one with the owner sitting on the ladder, in my cd-rom book. The "small" telescope mounted at the base is a 12.5-inch. As far as bringing one these beasties to Greece, yes, I can just envision the customs people adding lots of grief to your life. One could order the optics, spider, focuser, etc. and build the rest here. I am certain that one can pickup the required items. It would be an interesting project. I always wanted to get a 25-inch for galaxy viewing. -Fred

Hi George, I noticed you had made a reference to my cd-rom book on telescopes. The cd has 250 images in it. One day I hope to get around to doing a dvd-rom book and include the over 1,000 images that I have in my collection of telescopes from the past years. Below is an unplished image of a 36-inch Donsonian, hence the name "The Yard Scope". One yard is equal to 36-inches. This was taken at the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference in 1997. -Fred

Hi Everybody, For those of you that know Dimitri Kolovos, an image of his depicting M17 was selected as Astrophoto of the day by Astronomy Magazine. It can be viewed at their website which is at www.astronomy.com -Fred

The way these people, putting it mildly, operate, it would probably end up being cheaper if you just flew back and got the exchange. -Fred

Hi, Lets not forget Comet Ikeya-Seki (C/1965 S1) that also attained daytime status too. Here is a link to that comet... http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/I/Ikeya-Seki.html Fred

Hello Everybody, Comet Mc Naught is visible in the daytime. Further information is available at www.spaceweather.com on their main page. WARNING: BE CAREFUL AS THE COMET IS ONLY 5-DEGREES FROM THE SUN. -Fred

Anthony, Great, I hope that they have a copy you can pick up. It is a neat book. Then I'll wait for you to crank out those neat images. -Fred Zantespear, The well known book published by Edmund Scientific "All About Telescopes", author is Sam Brown, has plans for building a focault tester with dimensions for fabricating the various components out of wood. The dimensions are given in inches. It also addresses mirror making and many other facets of amateur telescope making. It is a great book and they used to have it in hardback for a while. Havn't seen the hardback copy for years, just the paperback copy. -Fred

To bad that Willmann-Bell doesn't sell their mirror making kits anymore. Their kits had two pyrex blanks of 1:6 ratio thickness. -Fred

Just wait until your finger tips feel the tool moving over the mirror disk. After much grinding the sensitivity in your fingers makes you feel like you are pushing the tool downwards and upwards in a deep bowl. Square counter top titles affixed to a plate glass tool work well for a grinding tool. If you want to go for a 6-inch f/10 mirror you can make it spherical insteand of parabolic. F/10 and longer can go spherical and naturally so does the length of your tube. For example, to make a 6 f/8 you have to have a Sagitta of 0.09375-inches, which is an exact number for a parabola. Sagitta is the depth of a curve, in otherwords how much glass has to be removed at the center of the mirror. -Fred

Hi GeoAstrix, Just finished reading your posting. Yes, attempting to grind and figure a 6-inch mirror can be done by practically anyone. People of all walks of life have succeeded at this. Just remember that if a person completes a high quality mirror, they had better employ a high quality secondard mirror too. Using an inferior secondary will degrade the optical system. Individuals have also made their own secondaries too. Another point to look out for is to make absolutely certain that one does not get their abrasives contaminated by one of the other abrasives. A nice scratch will put you back some hours. -Fred

Achilleas, You could try Shutan. Here is a link that shows a map of where they are located and if you read down a bit, there are instructions as how to get to their store from the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Don't know exactly what you are looking for, but you could give them a try. http://www.shutan.com/html/locations.htm -Fred

Yeah, reminds me of the other magazine that Sky & Telescope came out with for CCD astronomy. That didn't last to long. Do you remember the other magazine that came out in 1980 or so that was called Star and Sky? They went the way of the Dodo too. Hey, at least I have a complete set of Telescope Making-way cool.

Don't know if anyone holds a patent to the RC optical system. It is a great optical system for those who can afford it. George Ritchey and George E. Hale had a falling out over the then unnamed 200-inch Hale telescope at Mt. Palomar. Ritchey wanted it to have an RC configuration and Hale didn't. With Hale being the director of the project, his configuration won.