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| This 10" F4 will sport a beautiful Nova primary with Antares high-end secondary. It'll include a 3-vane spider and Moonlite focuser... Note the "full UTA" on this strut telescope. |
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| The "full thickness" Nova 10" primary with Ronchigram on the rear. One beautiful mirror!! |
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| The "mirror board" with mirror cell installed. This is a more "standard" mirror -- all cast aluminum and sturdy. (11/28/20) |
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| And the mirror cell from the front view. (11/28/20) |
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| Completed and packaged for shipping is Cadby's 16" Lightbridge rocker box. It's looking great!! |
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| A 10" strut telescope underway for Jeff in Oroville, California. Getting close to completion. |
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| Almost completed is a custom rocker box for Cadby's 16" Lightbridge telescope. |
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| Thanks Maria for the photo. Her "first light" reports a cloudy sky. to be expected when trying a telescope for the first time!! |
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| Ryan's kit includes a 12" F5 primary mirror on a 9-point mirror cell, curved-vane spider, 2-speed Moonlite focuser and wheel barrow handles. |
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| A packaged and ready to go!! |
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| The cell is designed to fit Dave's traditional mirror box. |
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| Nice larger knobs will make collimation easy!! All my mirror cells are designed and optimized with the Plop software. |
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| Jeff's 10" telescope is well underway, Next is to complete the rocker box. |
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| A 12" kit for Ryan is near completion. Here' the rocker box is tested for width and depth. Looks good. |
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| And a custom rocker box for Dave's Lightbridfge 16" telescope. The width and depth and just right for this beautiful telescope. |
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| Jeff's 4-vane spider in place. |
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| And now the focuser and secondary are installed and aligned. |
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| Jeff's 10" strut-telescope is coming along great. Here, the spider has been mounted. Next is to mount the focuser!! |
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| And, a 12" kit for Ryan is getting close to completion. Note the 3-vane curved-vane spider and 2-speed 2" Moonlite focuser. The heavy-duty bracket is 1/4" aluminum. |
This picture shows the difference in size between the original Orion (Go2) mount and the new Dobstuff (manual) one. I haven't weighed the Dobstuff yet, but I would guess it's around 25 lbs. The Orion is closer to 92 lbs. The Dobstuff uses a square box that takes up less space and allows me to get my chair much closer to the eyepiece. It also brought the eyepiece height at zenith down about 8".
Brents 14" on our rocker box and compared
to the Orion rocker.
So far I'm very pleased with how this has turned out. Hopefully I'll get a chance to take it out this weekend despite the cloudy forecast (maybe catch a planet or two).
(Brent sent an email and I borrowed some of his comments from his CN post).
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| In just a couple of days, Brent went from the kit, shown here, applied the custom color, applied the varnish and assembled the rocker box. THAT'S fast work!! |
A nice note and photos from Kristian in Lake Placid, Florida:
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| A 13.1 F4.5 strut telescope |
Anyway talk to you soon again. Thanks for making me a nice scope I love it. Cheers, K...
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| A beautiful 12.5" for Maria in Malden, Mass. The unusual feature is the full UTA (upper tube assembly) on this strut telescope. It works beutifully. |
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| That's a Moonlite 2-speed 2" focuser and Maria's optical finder. A Rigel finder will also be used for finding objects. |
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| A beautiful 12.5" full-thickness mirror renders outstanding images. Note the custom mirror cover. |
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| A cooling fan to facilitate equalize the primary mirror. |
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| All packed up and read for a new home!! |
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| Just a couple days ago Brent received the 14" Orion rocker box kit we built for him. He's applied the colors and is moving along. The varnish will make the colors "pop".. |
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| A 10" strut telescope for Jeff in Oroville, California (L) and 12" full-kit for Ryan in Boseman, Montana. The OTA rings are the first step in the project. |
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| Rocker box sides and altitude bearings for Jeff and Ryan's kit and telescope. (11/8) |
