An 8" F6 for Michael in Vancouver, B.C.

Coming along is an 8" F6 for Michael in Vancouver BC.  Michael's requirement is that no subassembly can be more than 15 pounds!!  We ought to be able to do that!! 

More to come....

From Ron and his 16" Dobstuff -- "GOTO"

A nice note and photos from Ron and his 16" dobstuff telescope. This one is "driven":

Hi Dennis

I hope you are well. 

I am still having a lot of fun and use out of my DobStuff scope. Recently I added goto and tracking and I thought I would show you. The telescope can now go to and track using planetarium software either on computer or smart phone.  I attach some pictures of the azimuth and altitude motors. Its a simple gear and rack system with two servomotors controlled by a SiTech controller. The SiTech system works by simply pointing the scope to the celestial pole and turning on the controller - tracking then starts automatically. I have ordered a Bluetooth adapter with the aim to use my phone to control the telescope. The SkySafari app for example will even given you a verbal account of what you are looking at while you observe. Pretty neat :)

All the best

Ron. 

A good bit of progress on Tom's 8" F5.7.

 

A 10" Baltic Birch Mirror Cell..

For John's 10" telescope. John lives in
Leander, Texas.

 

Finally, some star-party activity at Sawmill Trail
14-miles up the hill at 4K feet from the house.

 

A Bit More on the 10" and 14.7" Kits...

The 14.7" kit (L) and 10" kit rocker
box sides and altitude bearings.

One of the rocker boxes assembled with
clamps to check fit. They're both similar.

So far, so good!! 

 

An Equatorial Platform . . .

Here's Dan's 17" Dobstuff on a Tom Osypowski equatorial platform. The things with this platform is that it "is" the ground board.   Check out Tom's website:

http://www.equatorialplatforms.com/A great solution to the need for an equatorial telescope -- AND, it'll let you do some astrophotography without worrying about "field rotation".