I've been busy lately, preoccupied with longstanding projects that have been on the drawing board for years. I finally resolved myself to get out from behind this monitor and complete some of them... one being a small telescope. It's a mix of parts I already had on hand plus some of my own engineered pieces. It's a 600mm x 60mm refractor on a modified altazimuth mount w/zoom eyepiece tube, erector assembly, and right-angle eye tube. I focused (excuse the pun) my efforts on the optics and the smooth dampening of the mount's movement. I opted for optical resolution and a smooth, sturdy mechanism over that of higher magnification and sloppy mechanics. The results have been very satisfying for me. Images are certainly not Hubble like, but they are very crisp. I figured if I needed greater magnification and resolution, I can use my keys to the campus observatories that house 16" Schmitts w/ imagers and software (afterall it's free for me!). This little scope is something I (gently) throw in the truck and head to a dark field or the forest. I hope to soon view the I.S.S. but that's tricky, manually following such a fast paced object a mere 220 mi away without a synchronized mount. My next telescopr version is to be a larger one, 8" or 10" Newtonian reflector with an German equatorial mount on a heavy and massive, finely adjustable tripod. That, I will spend some money on towards its construction.
JUPITER and 3 moons (too lazy to look up their names- likely Europa, Io & Ganymede)
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The Moon
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Black Hole (just joking on this one!!)
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