"What? No lense caps? Astronomers NEED lens caps!"
Working on that...
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"What? No lense caps? Astronomers NEED lens caps!"
Working on that...
Lens caps...
Attachment 359371
Excellent! Great in every way! How do they stay on the scope? Friction fit... Screw on... O ring in a groove... Something else?
c
Wow, DD. You're going all out on this! I, too, am glad to see you posting again. Your work is exemplary, as usual.
Great to see you posting again. Love the scope.
FWIW... I took the whole thing apart yesterday and throughly cleaned the lenses and prism. Then took it outside to test it out. Seems to work just fine!
I have had little time lately for turning or posting. But I have managed to creep forward a bit on the telescope project. This is the polar shaft for the mount, the basic plan for which can be seen here: http://daviddecristoforo.com/Misc/mount.pdf
Attachment 367256
This is six inches in diameter and twenty inches in length. The "axle" is a 2" diameter hard maple shaft. The housing was made from a laminated tube purchased from Anderson International. I was origionally planning on laminating my own tubes but the price on these is very fair and I was not up for doing this on my patio! Plus, my son's family bought these as a Father's day gift so I could hardly refuse....
The knurled "washer" on the end is threaded and serves as a tensioning ring. The "finial" is also threaded and locks down against the "washer"
These are the bearing housings, turned from hard maple and "ebonized", one for each end of the two shaft housings:
Attachment 367259
I also added a rotation lock. I was not completely sure how this would be made but ended up with a simple threaded dowel. It was the first time in many years that I have had an oppurtunity to use my thread boxes.
Attachment 367257 Attachment 367258
More to come.......
Precision work from the master!!! Good stuff, David.
Here is the previous thread on David's project - http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...e-Finder-Scope
A second to John Keeton' comment. It is always good to see your works.
Once again your work is outstanding. I'm happy to read whenever you can post. I want to buy the book when you are finished. :)
JKJ
Moving along, albeit at a snail's pace! (Sorry about the crappy "photos")
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I look forward to seeing new pictures on this! In fact, I'd be tempted to take a trip to see it with my own eyes some day! Beautiful work - I can't imagine the number of hours you have in this so far.
(To me, the photos are perfect. Time for studio quality later!)
I carried two of my (store bought) telescopes to a fellow woodturner's place (John Lucas) for the recent eclipse. Amazing. I don't know if you saw this picture earlier but he made this hand mirror for me to remember the occasion:
Attachment 368309
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...-by-John-Lucas
JKJ
David - for most of us, learning how to turn is a lot of fun but extremely challenging when trying to turn two things that look alike. The precision you show in every aspect of your telescope is amazing but I am afraid leaves most of us searching for words. I look forward to each update and really want to see the photos when your grandson actually gets the telescope! Thanks for sharing the journey!!