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telescope making
25" Dobsonian Telescope - Image Courtesy of Obession Telescopes
(A)mateur
(T)elescope
(M)aking

QUOTE: "I know of no subject connected with the pursuit of science which so abounds with exciting and delightful interest as that of constructing reflecting telescopes. It brings into play every principle of constructive art, with the inexpressibly glorious reward of a more intimate acquaintance with the sublime wonders of the heavens."

James Nasmyth, Inventor/Engineer, 1883

ATM Discussion Board Visit the Telescope Making Discussion Board!

ATM Meetings ATM Meetings: If you are located in San Diego County, or feel like driving down here, check this page out for all of the information, maps, meeting dates, email list, etc. The meetings consist of around 10+ ATM'ers getting together and grinding, testing, and discussing mirrors or telescopes, meeting at CSU San Marcos. These meetings should be held every Saturday from 9am-12pm unless noted on the ATM Meetings page. Putting yourself on the email list will put you in better communication with the group should something turn up and is recommended.

ATM Links ATM Links: There are great resources on the web for mirror grinders and telescope makers. Check out this small list of pages.

ATM Suppliers for my project ATM Suppliers: This is a list of vendors that I used for my 10" project. I recommend each of them. They were easy to work with and provided high quality products. I do not warranty your experiences with them however <g>.

Tutorials Tutorials: Read various tutorials with tips and tricks for making your own telescope. Please submit some of your own ideas!.

I will work for telescope parts <g>My ATM Status (updated 06/12/2000): I've put the 10" f/5.71 mirror blank on hold for right now. It's simply getting bogged down in figuring and I need to complete a project to actually do some observing with a hand-crafted scope. To that end I've begun working on a 6" piece of Astrosital (low-expansion Russian equivalent to Zerodur) to make a long focal length (f/11) for specialized solar and planetary viewing. I'm down to 5 micron aluminum oxide; next is 1.3 micron and then zirconium oxide. It should be polished out in a week or two. Testing should be simplified a little bit since it will only need to be a sphere with no parabolization. If your interested in the 10" blank, I've worked out my r^2/2R figures for my Couder mask using the Millies-Lacroix Data Reduction Method (as seen in TM #6, page 20) and you can review my data here if you want to drive yourself nuts! <g>

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