My Telescopes
This page gives some details of the telescopes I have acquired over the years. The latest instruments are at the top of the page and the earliest at the bottom.
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This telescope is my most recent acquisition and is my main instrument. In the pictures above, my 90mm Maksutov is mounted on the Ultima 9.25 using a dovetail bar system made by my father. A counterweight is mounted on another dovetail bar to allow the system to be balanced. The 90mm Maksutov can be pointed independently of the Ultima 9.25 to allow it to be used as a guidescope for CCD imaging. Also shown above are home made declination and focus motors, both of which can be controlled remotely.
A couple of years using my Celestron Ultima 9.25 in my small yard convinced me that I needed somewhere more permanent to house it. The telescope is quite heavy and bulky and it can be very frustrating to carry it all outside only to have the sky immediately cloud over! A loft observatory was constructed that provided a permanent equatorial mount for the telescope. All I need to do now is to open up the roof window, place the scope on its wedge and power up the computers. The roof windows I used are quite large and allow excess heat to escape from the loft quickly.
This is described in more detail on my H-Alpha Solar page.
Coming soon.
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As well as the fork mounted 6" reflector described below, I also own a 90mm Maksutov. This instrument was made by Peter Drew of Bedford Astronomical Supplies. It is mainly used as a portable instrument and as a guide scope when taking long exposure astro-photographs with a camera and telephoto lens. A large number of photographs of Comet Hale-Bopp were taken using this telescope as a guider for a telephoto lens. The original mounting for the mark I 6" reflector is now used to carry the Maksutov. A 6 volt precision DC motor provides the motion for equatorial tracking. A tachometer feedback circuit ensures that the motor rotational speed remains constant at a user tracking rate.
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For my early years in astronomy this used to be my main instrument. Except for the commercial optics (made by Brian Crabb of Crabb Optical), it is entirely home made. Many years ago (20+ years!) my father was interested in learning how to weld. A suitable project came to mind - a telescope mounting. As a result a massive welded steel equatorial fork mounting was constructed. The entire mounting was built with the intention of catering for a larger instrument in the future.
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After a few weeks of manually carrying this heavy telescope in and out of the garage each time I wanted to use it, it was decided that some kind of semi-permanent shelter was needed. Site selection consisted of choosing a suitable corner of the garden. A wooden rotating roof observatory was constructed. Sadly the observatory was demolished several years ago and the telescope is now mothballed.
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This telescope was constructed over 25 year's ago, when I first got interested in astronomy. The 6" plate glass mirror was made by George Hole of Brighton. Although the mirror was of good quality it suffered from thermal expansion problems. This was compounded by the use of completely enclosed mirror cell. In addition, tube currents affected the optical path due to using a plastic drain pipe tube that was too narrow.
The German equatorial mounting was made from a salvaged piece of old dental surgery equipment. A 1" diameter stainless steel shaft ran in self-aligning rolar bearings. Plain bearings were user to hold the 1" diameter stainless steel declination shaft. This mounting performed well in providing equatorial tracking during clam weather conditions. However, during windy weather it tended to sway about a bit, which was a bit annoying when I was trying to view planets using high power eyepieces.
As a first attempt at telescope building, both the telescope and mounting provided a lot of useful knowledge. The mounting is still used today as an equatorial platform for astrophotography using telephoto lenses and with my 90mm Maksutov telescope. The telescope was later dismantled and the optics put into storage.