Category Archives: making-telescopes

On 3rd of January 2011, I began my telescope making journey. It is still a work in progress. These pages are the chronicle of that journey.

Podcast #6: Building telescopes

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Welcome to the 6th episode of the Urban Astronomer Podcast. This is the second part of our interview with Chris Stewart, one of the names behind the Amateur Telescope Making class in Johannesburg, one of the organisers of the annual ScopeX telescope and astronomy expo, and director of the Astronomical Society of South Africa’s Instrumentation section. In this part, he talks about the pros and cons of different telescope designs, how to make them, how to select an eyepiece, and … Continue reading →

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Completing a fixed telescope mount

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Some time ago, I wrote about my cunning plan to build the lightest, cheapest possible observatory: Plant a pier in my back yard, attach a telescope to it and use that as the base of my observations and photography. At that stage, I was about half-way excavating a hole for the pier, and had run into difficulty with a large rock placed exactly where I didn’t need it. Read on to see how I dealt with that problem, and how … Continue reading →

Building a fixed telescope mount

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The last time I wrote about my astrophotography attempts, I came to the conclusion that my biggest problem was the mount. My current rig perches atop a surveyor’s tripod, which is more than adequate for visual work but not as rigid as I’d like for photographic work – it vibrates a little too easily for my taste. Besides, any portable setup is going to require polar alignment every time I want to use it, and to do it properly can … Continue reading →

Gloves

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So after much head-scratching and frustration trying to get my mirror to move smoothly over the pitch lap so I can finish the polish and get back to figuring, a friend from the ATM class (he’s also one of the coordinaters of the annual ScopeX astronomy and telescope expo suggested rubber gloves.  This is such an obvious and simple solution, I can’t understand why I didn’t think of it myself. So a few days back when my wife headed out … Continue reading →

Not as far as I thought

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Worse news: My mirror is not only not a sphere, it isn’t even fully polished. For the first time, I got the glass properly clean (lots of running water and soap while soft wiping with thoroughly cleaned wet fingertips, rinsing with distilled water, drip-dried) and gave it the laser test.  I shone a red laser pointed down onto the polished surface, and observed two spots: A bright one from the back surface of the glass, and a fainter (but still … Continue reading →