Amateur Telescope Making
The First 16 inch - Observatory Fork Mount
Uploaded 12/5/17
 This huge telescope
            was my first home build instrument. It took the better part of
            a year to build it in the early 80s, I machined the entire mount
            myself, built the oak fork, complete rotating fiberglassed tube
            and oh yeah - also built the roll off roof observatory to house
            it. I used this scope for astro imaging and some visual, and
            had many photos (yes they were called photographs back then)
            in the magazines.
 

            


            
Here you can see me on top of the 8 foot ladder
working with the 16.  It had two focusers, one for
imaging and the other for off axis guiding.  I had to
manually guide this scope on top of this set up for
over an hour at a time.  This convinced me early to 
be an adopter of ccd guiding...

The 16" f/4.4
Observatory Photo/Visual

Click for Full 1290 x 960 size



            

            
Dawn shown here with the completed
instrument.  Take a look at that focuser. 
its a gold plated machined craford I designed
myself.  

Click for Full 1290 x 960 size


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