Completed today is Brian's 17.5" F4.5 truss telescope. As mentioned in an earlier post, Brian asked me to build a traditional UTA (upper tube assembly) for his telescope. Note the Sky Commander is mounted near the eyepiece on the focuser board. A nice feature....

The primary mirror was refigured by Optical Wave Labs near Sacramento. What started out as a Coulter mirror has ended up as a premium optic with a 0.955 strehl.

Nice.

Detail of the Upper Tube Assembly with
Sky Commander.

Also completed today is a rocker box upgrade for a 16"
Meade Lightbridge telescope for Mike D. in Forest Hills N.Y.

Detail of the rear of the rocker box.

16" Rocker Box Upgrade for Mike D. in Forest Hills, NY.

A couple of projects are coming together. I'm just about complete with Brian's 17.5" telescope. That'll be done by this weekend. Another small project is underway -- a rocker box upgrade for a Lightbridge 16" telescope.

Initial "fit" is checked by assembling the rocker
box with clamps. 

Here you see a couple pictures of the early stages of construction. First the sides come together and then I assemble the rocker box with clamps to be sure that all the components fit properly.

So far so good.....

Greg and his newly "remade" 8" F5.4 telescope.

Here's a picture of Greg S. in Pinellas Park, Florida, with his 8" F5.4 telescope. Greg reports that he and his wife made the primary mirror some years ago. I was given the opportunity of putting the optics into a telescope of the Easy Transport Telescope design, so the struts are only about 20" long.

And -- check out the cool shirt!!

Yours truly (for scale) and Brian's 17.5" F4.5 telescope.

A friend of mine stopped by and I had a photo shot of the 17.5" F4.5 and yours-truly for scale. As mentioned, this is a large telescope. Yet, I'm able to move the sub-assemblies (rocker box, UTA, mirror box) around quite easily. Setup take less than 5 minutes and collimation stays very close. Only the slightest adjustment is necessary.

Set up and ready for its "test drive".

Now that the rocker box is complete, I put the telescope together. This is a BIG telescope -- and beautiful. The mirror is newly refigured and coated. 

I've installed the encoders for the Sky Commander DSC. Now that the telescope is so close to complete I've set up outside for a "test drive" under the stars. Another test, in a few days, will confirm the Sky Commander is installed and working properly.

Here's some pictures so far.


About an hour later!! The images through the telescope are excellent. Saturn was stunning -- even though the seeing is a bit soft. Star images are pin-points -- and with the curved vane spider -- no diffraction spikes.

Detail of the UTA. The spider is an
"Observatory Grade Destiny"

Looking into the "mirror box". The dew shield is not installed.
The mirror cover is to the right.

The 17.5" mirror sits on an all aluminum
18-point flotation mirror cell.

Brich's 17.5" F4.5 rocker box coming together.

The rocker box for Brian's 17.5" F4.5 comes together. Here, I've fit the pieces together with clamps to be sure that everything fits nicely. So far, so good.........

Brian's 17.5" F4.t Truss Telescope.

Progress is being made on Brian N's 17.5" F4.5. Here you see the pictures of the completed OTA with truss components. I took the scope under the stars last night and completed the tests need to construct the trusses.

From this stage, the telescope is within about 2 weeks of completion.....