Ken's 6 to 8-tube Truss Telescope . . .

Ken brought in his 16" 6-tube truss telescope for a modification to
an 8-tube with full Upper Tube Assembly. Lookin' good.

Rodney's Secondary...

Rodney contacted me about a secondary
he could not adjust and asked for a solution.

I added an adjustable component and it
works like a charm....

A Note from Nathan and his 12" Lightbridge Rocker Box ...

Hey Dennis!

 Wanted to give you an update on the rocker box. I finished the staining and polyurethane finish shortly after I sent you the last email. I had other other projects come up after that and finally got the assembly done over this last weekend. Everything went together great!! I’ll go ahead and include a couple photos of the finished rocker box, I haven’t had a chance to get the scope on it yet because of not so great seeing conditions here lately. Can’t wait to get the scope on it and then I’ll get some more pics for you. Hopefully this coming weekend if the skies are clear!  Nathan

I like the color scheme. Neato!!

A Rocker Box Kit ...

Completed and ready for packaging is a kit for Peter's 12" telescope.
These are made from furniture-grade Baltic birch. I built rocker
boxes for just about any telescope -- kits or completely assembled.

A 10" F6 Under Construction . . .

A 10" F6 under construction with a primary
mirror from Swayze Optical. This is a little
different design as it has a full upper tube
assembly on a strut OTA.

A 10" F6 Strut with full UTA...

A strut design with full UTA. Not too common.

The spider is a Destiny curved-vane. The focuser will be
a Moonlite 2-speed 2" crayford device.

The telescope will look "similar" to this one.
This telescope was built by Carl in Berkeley,
Missouri from one of our kits.

A Note and Photo from Ron and His 16" Truss...

Hi Dennis

I hope you are well. I thought I would drop you a quick line. My dobstuff scope is working great and I take it out whenever I can. 

I have been doing some modifications - adding fans, temperature but I am mostly proud of my truss conversion. I thought I could tighten up the collimation stability when moving the scope through altitude and it really has done that. Not that I thought the strut design wasnt great - it was fun to build on the design. I saw your website had something similar so tried it myself. This design is not particularly portable though where I see yours is!

Thanks and all the best

Ron

July 23, Close Approach of Neowise...

A beautiful evening at a nearby Visitors Center and a darker sky.
That a Meade 2045 4" SCT and a 10x52 Celestron binocular.
The Comet Neowise was a beauty. Also looked at Alberio
and a few star clusters in the Milky Way.

Comet Neowise -- a Beauty!!

We saw this beauty from our front hard. And, took a short drive 3 miles
down the road to a visitors center with a bit darker skies. What a sight.
I was able to find it with the naked eye  -- the binoculars made
the comet really pop. Tomorrow we'll use a telescoe.

5 Visible Planets this Weekend (July 19)...

Just before sunrise, 5 planets and the crescent moon visible
without a telescope. Sounds like something we need to see.

Comet Neowise -- Still ...

Comet Neowise switches from an early morning object to an evening,
after sunset, object. Check it out to the NNW 

A Comet You say?????

And a good reason to have a telescope!!

Matt's 10" F4.7 Close to Completion . . .

All assembled and tested for fit, finish, balance and motion.
JUST RIGHT!!

Yet to be completed is the rocker box bottom and ground board.

A Moonlite 2-speed focuser and Destiny curved-vane spider.

And, Matt's 10" F4.7 Strut Telescope . . .

It took a few days, but now with the spider installed, I've moved to
the next step on Matt's telescope. Testing under the stars with
adjustable struts -- calculated at 42.5"

Coming along, with 3-vane curved-vane spider and Moonlite 2-speed
2" crayford focuser installed. 

7/6/2020 Matt's OTA, a step
closer to completion.

And the rocker box is coming along -- closer to completion.

Rod and his 12" Explore Scientific Telescope . . .

A note from Rod via Cloudy Nights:

Adding DSCs to an ES truss dob can be a challenge, especially when it comes to the addition and

 placement of the altitude encoder. Even the removal of the azimuth bolt can be a bit dicey. I had contacted Explore Scientific in the past but they didn't have DSCs for their truss dobs and as far as I know, they still don't. A supplier in Australia has an encoder kit that involves the application of a magnetic strip by means of an adhesive for the altitude encoder but I was a bit apprehensive of this because if I somehow misapplied the strip per its specs, I wasn't sure how easy or difficult it might be to redo it or return it if there was a problem. I preferred to have the encoders installed locally in SoCal, if possible, so I contacted Dennis Steele at DobStuff and I transported the scope to him last week, via a 2.5 hour drive from my home. The 10,000 tic encoders are now installed and I'll pick up the scope in a few days. Additionally, Dennis added some plastic supports on the mirror cell as a few had fallen off so he replaced all of them. As you can see by his handiwork, the hardware and encoders are installed and ready for connection of the cables.  

It's been a pleasure working with Dennis as he is very responsive with communications and updates on his work. I enjoyed chatting with him while discussing scopes and ham radios. He really does nice work in a timely manner.

A lightweight rocker box makes for an interesting
encoder installation -- it works great.

Locating the altitude tangent arm to allow the telescope
to swing through horizontal to the zenith.

Not Far from Home ...

Driving down the road, no far from home, and I spotted
this beauty of a dome. I don't know what's inside, but
it seems to be about 10 or 12 feet in diameter.

NICE!!