| Telescope Project 2003 |
| For many years now I've wanted to build an 8 inch reflecting telescope. The desire started in 1976 when my parents bought me my first telescope. It is a 2 1/1 reflector and I still have it today. It was very limited in it's abililty to gather light, but I did see Saturn's rings for the first time with my own eyes through it. Below is a photo of the telescope in it's new tripod I made for it. |
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| Below you can see my 8 inch Newtonian Reflector that I had made. I used the Dobsonian mount type system and made an improvement in the primary mirror cell. At this time I have two eyepieces, a 27mm Kelner and a 12.5 mm Polssl. The Kelner combined with my optics comes to 45x power. The Plossl comes to 95x power. I have now seen things that my other telescope could never pick up. |
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| All hardware involved in the building of the scope is stainless steel. The base is made of 3/4 plywood. Pivet points are made from teflon. The scope is balanced and can be pointed to any point in the sky with very little effort. The tube is made from Sona-Tube and is 10 inches in diameter. It is equiped with a red dot finder scope. Below is a photo of the primary mirror cell complete with the mirror in place. |
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| There is a thin plastic film covering the mirror in this photo to protect it. |
| This is a view looking down the aperture of the scope toward the primary mirror. |
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| In this view the scope is not complete. It is missing the moulding that protects the end of the tube. |
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| The aperture completed with moulding in place. |