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Tag Archives: Telescope Making

Clay Davies’ Links for Telescope Makers

24 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by gfbrandenburg in astronomy, flat, optical flat, Telescope Making

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Tags

albert highe, CLay Davies, Commercial, dobsonian, explore scientific, Jean Texereau, Mel Bartels, newtonian, R. F. Royce, Reiner Vogel, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, stargazer steve, stellafane, Telescope Making, trigonometry

I am copying and pasting Clay Davies’ recent article published on a Facebook page for amateur telescope makers, where he gives links to extremely useful sources as well as commentary. I think he did a great job, and want to make this available to more people.

================================= here goes! ================================================

Amateur Telescope Making Resources & Fast Commercial Newtonian Telescopes

  • Observer’s Handbook, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Every amateur astronomer should have at least one copy of this book. Every “newby” should read it cover to cover. Old hands should keep it as a reference. Avid astronomers get it every year, because it’s updated annually.
  • How to Make a Telescope, Jean Texereau. A classic book by a superb optician. The author taught many people how to make their own telescopes, including grinding, polishing and figuring their own mirrors. This book offers unique and practical telescope and mount designs I have never seen anywhere else.
  • The Dobsonian Telescope, David Kriege & Richard Berry. Want to knock off an Obsession telescope? Here is your bible, written by the creators of Obsession Telescopes. Here you will find well thought out and time proven designs for truss Dobsonian telescopes from 12.5” to 25” and more. If you are handy, if you use one of these designs and follow step-by-step instructions, you can build a fine truss dobsonian. But use free PLOP software (below) to design your mirror cell.
  • PLOP Automated Mirror Cell Optimization. This free windows software can help you design a “perfect” mirror cell. Just plug in the numbers, and in seconds, you have a mirror cell design. https://www.davidlewistoronto.com/plop/
  • Engineering, Design and Construction of Portable Newtonian Telescopes, Albert Highe. Do you want your next telescope to truly satisfy you? This book dedicates an entire chapter that asks you questions that help you design and build (or buy!) a telescope that will do just that. And it has beautifully engineered contemporary designs for large truss telescopes.
  • Engineering, Design and Construction of String Telescopes, Albert Highe. Beautifully engineered, yet challenging, ultra-light, air transportable newtonian telescope designs.
  • Newt for the Web (Stellafane). This is a simple, yet effective tool for newtonian telescope design. You can design an excellent telescope with just this free tool, plus old school drafting tools like ruler, protractor, pencil and compass. https://stellafane.org/tm/newt-web/newt-web.html
  • Reflecting Telescope Optimizer Suite. Mel Bartels created this wonderful free online newtonian telescope design tool: https://www.bbastrodesigns.com/telescopeCriteriaCalc.html If you explore Mel’s website you will find innovative, ultra-fast dobsonian telescopes, beautiful deep sky sketches, and mind expanding ideas that will probably make you a better observer. https://www.bbastrodesigns.com/The%20New%20Sub-F3%20Richest%20Field%20Telescopes.html
  • Right Angled Triangles Calculator, Cleve Books. Are you building a truss telescope but can’t remember trigonometry? This site makes it easy: http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/calrtri.htm
  • Stargazer Steve 6” Truss Telescope. A very portable, ultra-light commercial truss telescope. Moderately priced, too! http://stargazer.isys.ca/6inch.html
  • Explore Scientific 8”f3.9 Want a fast scope but don’t want to build it? This fast astrograph optical tube assembly has a carbon fibre tube and weighs 18.3 pounds / 8.3kg. It’s remarkably affordable, too! https://explorescientificusa.com/products/208mm-newtonian-f-3-9-with-carbon-fiber-tube
  • Orion 8” f/3.9 You can save a lot of work by buying a telescope off the shelf, like this one. Similar to the Explore Scientific, but with a steel tube at an irresistable price. And this OTA is under 18 pounds / 8kg! https://www.telescope.com/Orion-8-f39-Newtonian-Astrograph-Reflector-Telescope/p/101450.uts
  • R. F. Royce Telescope Building Projects. Simple newtonian telescope designs by one of the finest opticians on planet Earth. The first telescope I built, a 10”f6, and the second telescope I built, a 6”f8, were both based on Royce’s designs. Both performed far beyond my expectations. In fact, the surrier-trusses for my 8”f4 design were based on the Royce design. http://www.rfroyce.com/Telescope%20Bulding%20Projects.htm Want to build your ultimate lunar and planetary telescope? Click the third link. And… considering how much you can learn from one of the world’s greatest opticians, shouldn’t you click every link? http://www.rfroyce.com/thoughts.htm
  • Reiner Vogel Travel Dobs. If you are interested in designing and building your own telescope, have a look at this website. You will find easy and effective construction techniques and ultralight, ultra-portable telescopes here. And big ones. You’ll find equatorial mounts and observing notes, too! http://www.reinervogel.net/index_e.html?/links_e.html
  • Here is my talk at the RASC, Toronto, (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) entitled, “Designing and Building a Newtonian Telescope for Wide Field Visual and Air Travel”. You can scroll the video to 38:20 if you want to go directly to my presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz7TVQkTGCM

Videos on Telescope Making from Gordon Waite

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by gfbrandenburg in astronomy, astrophysics, flat, optical flat, Optics, Telescope Making

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Tags

figuring, flats, Gordon Waite, machine, optical, Optics, parabolizing, Polishing, Telescope Making, testing optics, Waite Research, youtube

Gordon Waite is a commercial telescope maker who has made a number of very useful YouTube videos on his grinding, polishing, parabolizing, and testing procedures. I thought some of my readers might be interested in viewing them. The link is here, or else you can copy and paste this:

https://www.youtube.com/user/GordonWaite/videos

Some Progress – AT LAST! – With Figuring the 16.5″ f/4.5 Thin Mirror That Headlines This Blog

10 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by gfbrandenburg in astronomy, Hopewell Observatorry, Optics, Safety, Telescope Making

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Tags

Bob Bolster, George Ritchey, Grinding, Hopewell Observatory, matching Ronchi, Mel Bartels, Polishing, Ronchi, ronchigram, Telescope Making, testing

I have been wrestling with this mirror for YEARS. It’s not been easy at all. The blank is only about twice the diameter of an 8″ mirror, but the project is easily 10 times as hard as doing an 8-incher. (Yes, it’s the one in the photo heading this blog!)

Recently I’ve been trying to figure it using a polishing/grinding machine fabricated by the late Bob Bolster (who modeled his after the machine that George Ritchey invented for the celebrated 60″ mirror at Mount Wilson over a century ago). That’s been a learning exercise, as I had to learn by trial and error what the machine can and cannot do, and what strokes produce what effects. The texts and videos I have seen on figuring such a large mirror with a machine have not really been very helpful, so it’s mostly been trial and error.

My best results right now seem to come from using an 8″ pitch tool on a metal backing, with a 15 pound lead weight, employing long, somewhat-oval strokes approximately tangential to the 50% zone. The edge of the tool goes about 5 cm over the edge of the blank.

This little movie shows the best ronchigrams I have ever produced with this mirror, after nearly 6 hours of near-continuous work and testing. Take a look:

And compare that to how it used to look back in September:

 

Also compare that to the theoretically perfect computed ronchigrams from Mel Bartels’ website:

perfect theoretical ronchigrams for guy's 42 cm mirror

Part of the reason this mirror has taken so long is that after grinding and polishing by hand some years ago, I finally did a proper check for strain, and discovered that it had some pretty serious strain. I ended up shipping it out to someone in Taos, New Mexico who annealed it – but that changed the figure of the mirror so much that I had to go back to fine grinding (all the way back to 120 or 220 grit, I think), and then re-polishing, all by hand. I tried to do all of that, and figuring of the mirror, at one of the Delmarva Mirror Making Marathons. It was just too much for my back — along with digging drainage ditches at Hopewell Observatory, I ended up in a serious amount of pain and required serious physical therapy (but fortunately, no crutches), so this project went back into storage for a long, long time.

Recently I’ve tried more work by hand and by machine. Unfortunately, when I do work by hand, it seems that almost no matter how carefully I polish, I cause astigmatism (which I am defining as the mirror simply not being a figure of rotation) which I can see at the testing stand as Ronchi lines that are not symmetrical around a horizontal line of reflection. (If a Ronchi grating produces lines that look a bit line the capital letters N, S, o Z, you have astigmatism quite badly. If astigmatism is there, those dreaded curves show up best when your grating is very close to the center of curvature (or center of confusion) of the central zone.

Using this machine means controlling or guessing at a LOT of variables:

  1. length of the first crank;
  2. length (positive or negative) of the second crank;
  3. position of the slide;
  4. diameter of the pitch lap;
  5. composition of the pitch;
  6. shape into which the pitch lap has been carved;
  7. amount of time that the lap was pressed against the lap;
  8. whether that was a hot press or a warm press or a cold press;
  9. amount of weight pushing down on the lap;
  10. type of polishing agent being used;
  11. thickness or dilution of polishing agent;
  12. temperature and humidity of the room;
  13. whether the settings are all kept the same or are allowed to blend into one another (eg by moving the slide);
  14. time spent on any one setup with the previous eleven or more variables;

Here is a sketch of how this works

bolster's ritchey-like machine

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