The Old Days

[fringe_dweller]

So true so true - these newcomers have got it so easy :)
http://cleardarksky.com/fourobservers.html
Kearn

[asimov]

Nothing much has changed this end mate! I'm still scanning the heaven's with a 25mm Kellner....:thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

I did think of you when i read that bit John LOL :-))
kearn

[ballaratdragons]

Haha! I love it!!!

And Kearn, I love your new Avatar!! SpongeBob!!!! :2thumbs:

[asimov]

Hey Kearn! youv'e made me go all nostalgic now! I'm gonna throw away all my EPs that are younger than 20 years old....throw away the DSLR and arm me tasco 4.5" with a BOX BROWNIE!

[fringe_dweller]

Rflol!! :rofl: :rofl: :thumbsup: The yellow menace of Bikini Bottom is everywhere! You definitely got me with that one John :) nice one! And thnx BD! still just experimenting with the avatars tho...

Spongey - i mean Fringey

[ballaratdragons]

John,

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :2thumbs: :D :rofl:

Great pic of Fringey, I mean Spongey!!

[ballaratdragons]

I won't mention that the sand for the mirrors I had to carry by the handful (I couldn't afford a bucket) all the way back from Egypt by foot had to be melted and fused over a fire that I had to make from twigs from 300 miles away coz everything around the swamp is wet. Then I had to search for the phosphorous and process it just to make a match to light the fire . . . in 120mph winds while it was snowing!

[fringe_dweller]

yes i admit that is good likeness of me - AHAHAHHAHAA YOU'VE ALL BEEN HOFFED!!

And BD, tell that too the kids of today - they wont believe ya! :rofl: :D

Hoff .. er i mean Kearn

[ballaratdragons]

Fringey,

Stop changing Avatars, you are making me dizzy trying to keep up with them :rofl:

Do you mean to tell us that you are really David Hasslehoff???? WOW! How cool is that?

[fringe_dweller]

Yes Ken :) I have kept my identity well it seems - no one spotted that earlier? - someone better take my avatar rights away, i'm just getting warmed up LOL :rockband: :rofl: :rofl: :2thumbs:
Fringey

[cometcatcher]

Haha! Sorry but it's all true!

I'm another user with 30 year old gear. Wot's wrong with 1 inch 25mm Kellners anyway? I have a nice 25mm Unitron that works real beut. I even whip out the old Huygens every now and then to remind me how good it is.

Me motor drives... I use a 30 year old tape recorder motor wired to a variable resistor with a hand controller from a 70's TV game.

Me telescope is made out of wood, with mirrors made from thin plate glass. Instead of a real tool, to make the mirrors I use small craft tiles glued to a piece of wood. I did try to make a telescope mirror out of wood, but it wooden work. (okay I made that bit up) :D I did however try to make a mirror out of an aluminium disc. It wooden work either. :P However satellite dishes work just fine made out of wood!

I ground a simple 4 inch f22 refractor objective out of window glass. Chromatic aberration was pretty bad (make that very bad) but it worked!

Flat mirrors are a luxury, I use prisms ripped out of 30 year old worn out binoculars. I use the eyepieces out of the binos too. Wider angle than Meade. :P

The finders are made from the optics of old projector lenses I found down the dump. Crosshairs made from hair.

The main mirror adjuster's springs are valve springs from some old FORD.

Toilet seat bolts hold the Spider in place!

My observatory is the dining room and I just point the scope out the window.

What I just wrote is ALL TRUE! Wanna see photos?

Your all spoiled these days!

[ving]

yes, pics please! :)

[fringe_dweller]

Weeelllllll ... All we had for binos was a pair of coke bottles held to our eyes (and even then we had to use full ones!! with no caps on them!!!!!) and we lived so far underground all we had was an air hole that gave us a .5º x .5º fov of the sky! and then we had to wait for Galileo to invent the telescope - we were always saying hurry up and invent that thing will ya Galilei! and for star charts all we had were early palaeolithic cave paintings - you lot of have got it SOOO EAASSSYYYY....and BTW you have been Hoffed again!! and yes please i want to see these pics too :) - mind you we didnt have cameras back then - we just had ochre and charcoal on papryus paper or quartzite tools to chip out representations in granite to take happy snaps - but we were happy :)
Fringey

[ballaratdragons]

Yeah . . . well . . . er . . . back then I . . er . . . didn't have any eyes! They weren't invented yet. And we had to guess what was up there!!

p.s. I still occasionally use my Kmart Huygenian 0.96" EP's!

[cometcatcher]

Okay, where will I start.. With pics I already have on the hard drive I suppose. Btw the hard drive is actually made from an old tape recorder and 20000 old floppy discs... er no it itsn't. :P

Okay, here's a 5 inch f7 and 7 inch f7.1 mirrors made from plate glass. The 7 inch seems to be figured very nicely but I have so many scopes now I haven't bothered to have it aluminised yet. I suppose in cave man tradition I should silver it.

The 5 inch is aluminised and finished but it has slight astigmatism. Still fine at low power though. Funny story about that. I became very lazy after making several mirrors so with the 5 inch I ground it on my TV table sitting down watching TV the whole time. Well, it's boring work grinding mirrors! I would rotate the tool and mirror but since I didn't move my lazy self around the mirror I guess that's how the astigmatism came about.

[cometcatcher]

In the mirror holder pic you can see the valve springs used for mirror adjustment. This holder is for a 5 inch so it has motorbike valve springs I think they are. Got them from the motorcycle wreckers anyway. The bigger mirror holders use heavier duty ones.

Looks like some castor oil has spilled over the tool after being stored under the sink cabinet. This tool was used to gring a 6 inch mirror. The cat is helping out with photos as usual.

The tube is made from 3mm ply sheet with 12mm ply formers.

Motor drive and hand controller in this pic. I'm using tape to stop the wires from falling off. Have to upgrade to hot melt glue one day. Mount is from an old Tasco refractor from about 1975. Used this with a 5.5 inch scope at the ABC sponsored astronomy evening last night but I use many scopes on this mount. It's what I do most of my astrophotography with!

[cometcatcher]

This isn't exactly for astronomy, it's for satellite sweeping so it's sorta outer space related.

I make parabolic dishes out of wood. They have a coating of aluminium foil (yes the stuff used for cooking) on the surface for RF reflection and are painted so they don't turn the dish into an oven.

The dish mount is similar to a German Equatorial telescope mount but it only moves in R.A. The axle is made from an old bench saw and powered by a windscreen wiper motor from an old 70's Datsun Sunny wormed onto a paper schreder gear.

[fringe_dweller]

Kevin, that was fair bit to take in at once!! I was wondering have you ever actually paid much, if anything for your gear? LOL! the tiled tool cracked me up :-)) guess you dont have to keep it in the fridge then hehe - (I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but I think That Cat might be from Hell? just be careful heheh ;-) ) from The window wiper motor through to the specially made boxes for the mirrors to live in, I enjoyed your photos and work/ideas immensely, shows what can be done if your prepared to have a go, thanks :)
Kearn

[cometcatcher]

Glad you got a kick out of them Kearn. :)

Your quite right about the cat, as a kitten he was very wild and since his eyes went red with flash he ended up with the name Satan. Fortunately for me he has calmed down after 7 years of biting and scratching me.

It's been a long while since I bought a telescope, 1986 was the last time I think.

The 39cm Dob mirror was also made from plate glass, but I used a glass tool for this one. This is the scope that I used toilet bolts to hold in the spider which was all hand made. The 39cm mirror holder is huge.

It's all fun.

[Mick]

It is huge, I was blown away the first time I saw it. Maybe one night we can fill her up with star light Kevin. :)

[fringe_dweller]

Kevin, the shot of your dob collection!! :eyepop: serious firepower!!
Kearn

[cometcatcher]

The 39cm needs another flat mirror. I must get around to replacing it one year. And I need a shed to put lots of rubbish in before I can wheel the 39cm out again.