Credits and inspirations

Inspirations

Living in Tampa, Florida in 1945, I began to notice the stars while enjoying warm nights and dark skies. Prodded by my grandparents and a copy of National Geographic magazine with wonderful star maps, and I began to learn the constellations.

The spectacular Draconids meteor storm caused by comet Giacobini-Zinner in 1946 further stimulated my interest in astronomy. I realize that I've been spoiled by that event; its nearly constant bombardment of the night sky has made every subsequent shower seem a little disappointing.

Dr. H. Page Bailey

As a teenager I lived in Riverside, California, where I met Dr. H. Page Bailey¹. He was a dentist and an active ATM in Riverside during the 1930s. Bailey was the first amateur in this country to make a short focal ratio Schmidt camera. He also invented the hybrid split ring-English yoke equatorial mount used for the Hale 200" telescope at the Palomar Observatory², shown here as used in his 9" Nagata Newtonian reflector.

Although he was elderly when I knew him, he retained a keen interest in telescopes. He treated our astronomy club to observing sessions using the 9" Nagata, 15" Cassegrain, and long-focus folded solar telescope.

I recall discussions about visits from Porter and other Cal Tech people interested in his Schmidt camera and telescope designs. His telescopes were described in Amateur Telescope Making Advanced Book Two, edited by Albert Ingalls and copyrighted in 1937.

Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes V, Proceedings SPIE 2199

This fascinating set of the The International Society for Optical Engineering³ (SPIE) conference papers, edited by Larry M. Stepp, was published in 1994 and reveals how the engineering professionals design their big 3.5 to 10 meter telescopes. It contains a lot that can be applied by amateur telescope makers.

Older telescopes, like the Hale at Palomar, have very massive designs based on equatorial mounts. These new giants make use of light weight, computer controlled structures and alt-azimuth mounts. I think their minimalist designs are appealing and elegant.

I found these images at observatory Web sites⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷^, ¹²:

Large Binocular Telescope at Mt. Graham International Observatory, Arizona. It uses two 8.4m mirrors. It's the largest telescope ever made. The construction of the telescope and its enclosure is dazzling. Nothing but form and function.

Telescope Making

This defunct Kalmbach Publishing Co.⁸ magazine, edited by Richard Berry, contained motivational and instructional articles. Even though the Internet provides a wonderful information resource and exchange medium for wired telescope nuts, I still miss Telescope Making's in-depth printed articles.

Jeanne Sayre, Phil Sayre, and Leo Esterl

Nobody deserves more credit than my wife, Jeanne. She supports my hobbies and tolerates all my hours of mental absence when I'm plugged into the computer or stuck to an eyepiece.

My brother, Phil, a mathematician, solved a problem that turned out to be non-trivial. He developed tables and equations that enabled me to cut minimally-sized elliptical baffles for my telescopes.

Most of my secondary light baffles are plastic disks that I wrap around a top ring. If I cut them as circles, they take on an eliptical shape when mounted. Unless the diameter of the disk is made larger than Mel Bartels' BAFFLE.BAS program specifies, some light will not be blocked. Enlarging the baffle is a poor solution because it adds unnecessary weight to the top end.

I knew an ellipse would be a better shape, but I had no idea how to determine its eccentricity. Phil solved the problem quickly, and wrote a PYTHON program to generate tables for a range of baffle radii and tube diameters. The solution probably came to him faster than I could describe the problem.

Leo is friend, former neighbor, and by profession a mechanical engineer. He gave me tips on design, freely made available much of his tools and equipment, helped me out of several jams, and told me how to prepare drawings for machine shops. He also gave me a copy of McMaster-Carr Supply Company's catalog⁹, which is to die for. Over the course of several projects, I've learned much about metal-working from Leo. His help and generosity is invaluable.

P. A. Signs

This Ft. Collins, Colorado sign-making business¹⁰ is owned by my daughter and son-in-law. They generously provided a professional paint job and the vinyl color trim. They also made me aware of some of the materials used in the sign business that lend themselves to telescope making.

P. A. Signs has performed aluminum, Alucobond and Alumalite routing for me. If you're interested in having some telescope parts routed out of these materials, e-mail them at P. A. Signs.

Mel Bartels, Dan Gray

Mel was most generous with his time during a gathering at the Shingletown air strip. He spent well over two hours helping debug the hookups of my 22" monocular drive system and adjust his software's parameters, all at the expense of his personal viewing time. He also helped me isolate a drive problem at the 2003 Oregon Star Party.

Mel must spend hours each day monitoring a variety of Internet special interest groups. His Web site¹¹ is an ATM gold mine. He is a priceless asset to the telescope making community, arguably this country's preeminent ATM.

Dan Gray is the man behind the Sidereal Technology's¹⁷ amazing servo controller. Dan sent me an early prototype for the 22" binocular and spent generous amounts of his time re-working the unit to handle an older model handpad I was using. He also repaired the unit when I fried it by connecting the power leads incorrectly.

Others

My thanks to Steve Sherry of Jim's Mobile, Inc. (JMI) for his help in designing a modification to JMI's NGF-mini2 focuser to meet the requirements of my 12.5" binocular.

I have asked for and received very helpful comments on binocular design from members of the ATM list, an Internet community of like-minded telescope nuts. They have generously shared their experiences and insights.

Those who have built binocular telescopes and published them on the Web include Steve Swayze¹³, the Bolton Group¹⁴ (Gerald Bramall, Brian Webber and David Ratledge) and Dave Trott¹⁵. Clive Milne¹⁶ built an impressive and innovative 20". Here are photos of their binocular telescopes found at their Web sites:

Steve Swayze's 12.5" Dwight Elvey's 13" Bolton Group's 8" Dave Trott's 13" Mark St. George's 6" Clive Milne's 20"

Less useful ideas

I also look for ideas from other technologies, hoping to glean some as yet undiscovered way to improve telescope design. Here are a few that didn't work out.

Acoustic locators^{18, 19} were used in the '30s and early '40s to detect enemy aircraft. Adapting their sound paths to light paths would have required too many prisms or mirrors.

This artillery piece probably inspired ATMs to build the dual-tube rocker box used in some binocular telescopes.

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