Chuck- No, I haven't decided upon a configuration, nor have I decided whether it would be a practical first telescope project for me. A lot of my dreams never get past the incubation period. (One of my hobbies is machining. If I built all the gas, steam and Stirling engines for which I have collected blueprints and castings for, there wouldn't be room in my garage for the cars.) I see this project as a way to combine my interests of machining and astronomy, and to make a more portable scope. It only makes sense if it is within my ability and budget - I'm in the research stage. The configurations that have caught my interest are Pfannenschmidt's Folder Refractor (S&T March 2001), Carreira's Drumscope (S&T Oct 2002), and Schroder's Collapsible Refractor (forgotten title from Main Library). The intriguing thing about the Drumscope (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the 3 mirrors should allow the image to be reflected to an axis offset from but parallel to the axis of the objective. This could allow two of them to be placed back-to-back to make a long focal length refractor binoscope. On one hand, my wife's disinterest in astronomy (and no kids) would allow me to simplify construction by having a fixed interoccular distance. On the other hand, it will be hard enough to justify to her the cost for ONE more scope, and now it would be doubled. (I was foolish enough to buy a 20-year-old BMW motorcycle a while back - it cost me a facelift. I'm a poor negotiator.) Dreamingly, Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuckhards@yahoo.com> To: <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 8:11 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Sources for Refractor Objectives
Bob, be sure to keep us posted on the project, I'd love to see a nice folded refractor. Have you decided on a configuration?
C.
--- Marilyn Smith <bob-marilyn@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Chuck. I've requested a catalog from Antares. They don't seem to have a website.
Bob Grant
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