Telescopes for nothing

Today in the Astromart Forum "Equipment Talk" is a post from a young man
(Thomas Gappmayer) who received 16" EQ on semi-permanent loan from a nature
group. A lucky fellow indeed, and his story brought home to me that
miracles do happen and that where there is a will, there is a way.

The first mirror I did was a four and a quarter incher back in 1964 and the
"mirror making class" I attended was a very small Sam Brown booklet from
Edmund Scientific. I did not ever have it aluminized or silvered. . .my
family was very poor and I couldn't afford it. I got the money for the
mirror kit from a $15.00 second place prize for an essay titled "How the
American Revolution Affects Me Today," which I wrote for the Daughters of
the American Revolution.

The tube for the scope turned out to be a section of galvanized metal
five-inch diameter rain downspout. Other parts of the scope were all "make
do" and all free. . .an old housing complex was being demolished not far
from my home and proved to be a wonderful supply source for pipe fittings,
wood, and other odds and ends.

Even though the mirror was never coated, the polished glass surface alone
sufficed to provide passable views (to my 13 year old inexperienced eye) of
the moon and, as I recall, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus.

I wish I still had the scope. Those really were the days.

Has anyone else a story to tell of their "telescope for nothing?"


--
Martin

Has anyone else a story to tell of their "telescope for nothing?"


About all I can say is that over the years I have given away several telescopes
to "needy" people. Over the years I have picked up a few decent scopes that
at some point out lived their usefulness and rather than getting a few dollars
from someone, I have just passed them along.

One interesting story involves a Jason 76mm F6.3 CAT that I purchased at a
garage sale for the sum of $8. It worked once I cleaned it up but it needed
some collimation as evidenced by the images at 25x of the moon, not too
sharp....

Over the internet I had hooked up with a CAT fancier who was in need of a high
quality scope like this for his daughter. So rather than just let the thing
rot, I threw caution to the winds, good money after good money and shipped it
out via slow boat/UPS.

The reports I get are that it is "cute."

Jon

While it was without some cost, ( sono tube ), my Babylon 8 was a
project that was built out of donated parts for it. The main mirror
was donated, I got the spider/secondary out of another scope but it
came apart and it was replaced with a donated secondary & spider. Just
about everyone here on S.A.A. knows of it and also knows of the 1971
Ford F250 PU that people helped fund too ( along with the head gaskets
too ).

And now a member of SAA has donated a f8 6inch mirror and a secondary
too along with some other odds and ends, so a new project is in the
works.

The Voice in the Desert ...

The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond


--
Dragons Must Fly when Thread's in the Sky

www.starlords.org

"Martin R. Howell" wrote in
message ink.net...
Today in the Astromart Forum "Equipment Talk" is a post from a young
man
(Thomas Gappmayer) who received 16" EQ on semi-permanent loan from a
nature
group. A lucky fellow indeed, and his story brought home to me that
miracles do happen and that where there is a will, there is a way.




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see http://medfmt.8k.com/bronscopes.html on low-cost $10 scopes ideas ;-)

there is an article in this month's AMSAT journal (Amateur satellite
corp.) on converting free former satellite dishes for use with amateur
satellite needs; the same kinds of dishes have been donated to SETI style
projects. AMSAT-DL is planning for 2007 a mars orbiting amateur radio
satellite (with "robot" operator for contacts) to monitor radio
occultation in Mars atmosphere from several microsats etc. - the minimum
antenna is a couple of meter dish antenna, depending on data rates ;-)

regards bobm
--
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* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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