Hi all,
Morbius Jr (8 yo) is really keen on Astronomy and has been talking about getting his own scope. I was thinking about just going out and buying something small and inexpensive when I came across this guy who built a dob for his daughter:
http://kitknife.tripod.com/astronomy/index.html
The "dad" inside me warmed to the idea immediately... what could be more bonding than building a telescope together with your son.
I'm pretty handy with wood (thanks Dad) so I'm fairly comfortable with timber design and construction. But I'm unsure about the optics side of things (clever as I may be, a wooden mirror isn't much value
).
And I didn't want it to be a HUGE project... if it takes too long to build he would lose interest, so I'm looking for ideas from you fine folks. Should I attempt to construct an OTA or maybe just find a second-hand 4" OTA and build a base for it? Has anyone done something similar with success or otherwise?
Any advice is greatly appreciated...