My first... A 6" f/8 mirror which I ground and polished, then assembled in an old-school Newtonian OTA circa 1969. Then made a 4.25" f/3 ( that was a sweet RFT, in a handheld shoebox-sized tube you could hold under one arm) and an 8" f/6.7, then a 6" f/18 folded Newtonian which had an f/5 primary and convex secondary
... Eventually I could afford to buy a rather massive equatorial mount from Astro-Optics, but decided to trash the steel pier and made a very solid wooden tripod for it, and a friend made a 10" worm drive for the RA axis though it was never motorised.
Along the way helped to renovate a very fine Cooke 4.5" refractor at school... This was a half-sized version of the Oddie at Mt Stromlo complete with clock drive...
After moving to Sydney swapped the 8" and its mount for an orange C8 (mistake, regretted the C8 but I couldn't manage the big Newtonian where I was living at the time)...
... Then a few years using a 6" f/5 for astrophotographers in the days of film...
Then assembled a 12" Newtonian, Used that for 10 years or so... Bought, used and sold a Meade 8"...
... Dropped out of the hobby 1993 until 2009 and now strictly visual using a 7" Mak on altaz mount...
Last edited by Wavytone; 17-06-2013 at 07:39 PM.
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