January 21, 2014 Slow and Easy

Rushing around only makes the mind forgetful.

The Quote for today:  "I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."
Woody Allen (1935), US film director    (On September 9, 1828, Leo Tolstoy was born)

Call me old fashioned. I find today's written conversations perplexing. Acronyms abound in business and the every day. I have no idea what most of them mean. Some of them have gone so far as to replace the word(s) they were meant to shorten. What would a piece art look like if it were turned into an acronym? Shudder!!! Sorry, not even going to try. Salvador Dali might know. A lot of his art looks like an acronym. Can you figure it out?

You have to read this post to get the most out of it. The pictures are nice and there are no acronyms used. Hate those things.

Today I would like to share one of my passions. We are not going to get technical. I just want to show off a project I completed some years ago. Here is a picture of the completed project.

Looks a bit like a canon but it is a home built 10" reflecting telescope. All parts with the exception of the tube and optics are home made. The base board is hand carved. 

The white circle at the bottom represents the sun. on closer inspection you will see (from left to right) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, The sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Sorry but Pluto is just too small to get in.

Merury and mars are virtually invisible in this photo but they are there. This is all part of what is know as the Dobson mount. I modified mine to allow it to follow the stars (Manually) more easily.

The "A" raised platform is at a 40 degree tilt to point at the north star thus providing easy tracking.  Lying flat it is very compact.

The tube is quite long and needs to be  counter weighted so I poured two counter weights to use depending whether a large finder scope is used or not. 

One weight for normal and two weights if a scope is attached. Nifty and easy to do. Now don't laugh but I used four toilet flanges to make the bearings for the telescope. 

They were trimmed to save weight and not look like toilet flanges. There is a diagonal spider that holds the secondary mirror. It reflects the light coming from the Main 10" mirror to the eyepiece on the side of the telescope. That is the 10" parabolic mirror at the other end of the tube.

The eyepiece is store bought. I  wouldn't think of attempting to create on of these. Far to technical for me. The one you see here provides low power and a wide field of view that makes it easier to locate the desired target. The  black circle around the eyepiece focuser (called a rack and pinion focuser) is to reduce or eliminate stray  light. The inside of the tube is painted with a flat  black paint to reduce stray light as well.

The platform base and the fork mount that hold the telescope need a bearing to make it as friction free as possible. Between the ground plate and the forked telescope mount is a Mylar plastic plate and teflon sheet bearings that reduce friction when operating the telescope. 

The result is a telescope that works well enough and provides a lot of fun that is shared with several of the neighbors, weather permitting. Of course that has not been very often lately. This is only one of several telescopes I have constructed. The others may be featured at some later date, after the readership recovers.

Now that I have lost most of my audience it is time to conclude this post. I am thinking about showing some stitchery in the next post. That will have to remain a surprise for now. If you read this far thanks. If not, oh well. Expect the unexpected and LOVE THE DETAILS.