[Suzy_A]

Hi Everyone!

I'm making a new telescope - 10" F4. I had everything except a tube.

Yesterday, I finally found a place that not only stocked 300 mm PVC tube, but would also sell me a metre and a half - the first few places I phoned wanted to sell me 500 metres or something like that.

Anyway, as the walls of the PVC is 7 mm thick, the tube weighs about 10 kg and so I'm planning on using it to make a fibreglass mould and then using that to make a carbon fibre tube that will weigh about 3 kg or so.

Now....

my two choices are to use white gelcoat on the outside of the tube OR to leave it black. What do people think?

The way I see it:

White - well - you can see it - you don't bump into the telescope (as much) in the dark as a black one. Secondly, after a late night/early morning session, if you leave the telescope out and the sun comes up it ain't going to fry as much. On the down side is the reflection problem when you look through the eyepiece and the other eye is open, but a bit of black around the focusser should help there. Thirdly, If it is white gelcoat on the outside, scratches don't show up as much and are easily fixed.

Black (carbon fibre) - look sexy! On the down side, the telescope is hard to see in the dark, it will get very hot if you leave it out during the day, and scratches are much harder to cover up.

What do people think?