 | Overall view
of the interior, dominated by the homemade telescope itself.
The tube is square half inch plywood, with large 10 inch diameter
air holes along its length. Black fabric is covering the tube
to keep stray light out, yet allow air circulation for tube equalization
to occur. The square design and holes totally prevent tube currents.
The front of the tube is covered with a 14 inch long black poster
board light baffle as well. This is a cool image, at least look
at the large version of this one. |
 | Portrait
view to show the rolled off roof in the background. The observatory
is a "cozy" 8x10 foot. |
 | Here you
can see the fabric over the stained wooden tube. The cables and
water tubes are dressed down to be less of a hazard in the dark,
and the white refractor on the back is an 80mm Vixen with a 17mm
eyepiece that is used for field centering on objects. |
 | The mount
as you may recognize is an Astrophysics AP1200 mount, being used
at maximum capacity at 140 pounds. My tube alone weighs 80 pounds
by itself, with a full thickness primary. |
 | The front
of the tube has the golden ST8i with water cooling tubes and
twin power supply cables for power and the cooling booster. Below
it is the 8x50 finder with dew heaters on both ends, and a zero
power sight, with dew heaters as well. The tiny hole cut in the
light baffle just in front of the finder is where the wires go
into the tube to the heater on the secondary mirror if needed.
It can get VERY wet up in the mountains here! |
 | Frontal view
of the golden CCD camera, and the ST4 auto guider. |
 | Here's the
shot you need to take note of. To the left edge is the golden
ST8i CCD connected to a Lumicon Newtonian easy guider. On the
front of this easy guider is a 1x coma corrector that is IN FRONT
OF the guiding pick off prism as well. The ST4 autoguider, vintage
1985 has a lock ring for to set the focus the same as the ST8,
and a very substantial strain relief on the output cord. This
is the weakest point in the ST4 design. Everything is connected
to the 2" JMI DF2 focuser, which has a normal and 3x finer
knobs for extremely precise focus setting. |
 | My all Styrofoam
light box for taking flat frames. It slides over the end of the
12 inch and provides a four bulb even glow on the transparent
surface for nighttime flats. A brightness adjust is at upper
right. Why Styrofoam? Its very light AND it has nearly perfect
reflectivity of all wavelengths from UV to IR. |
 | Power supplies
for mount, water tub with fountain pump for camera cooling. To
the right is the table for the laptop and charts. |
 | Close up
of water cooling tub, you can see the fountain pump inside. Get
one like mine that drives a 7 foot column of water and you'll
get 46 degrees C below ambient every time! |
 | ST4 console,
with hand controller for the AP1200 mount. Note I put a dark
filter over the display so it doesn't flood the inside of the
observatory at night with red light ! |
 | 80mm Vixen
for a super finder scope, with dew heaters on both ends. Did
you know that those freeze preventing heating tapes available
at ACE hardware can be cut down, and driven with 12 volts for
the ideal dew heater? |
