Slashdot Mirror

If you live in the northeast check out: Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston

It amazes me that people think that building a rocket weighing "hundreds of pounds" or flying over 60 miles is "a hobby.

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It amazes me that people think that writing your own operating system is "a hobby".
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What about mountain climbing? What about amateur astronomers that make their own 30 to 40" telscopes including computerized tracking systems accurate to less than 1/2 arc second? What about amateur robotics?

Now it may be the case that there needs to be some type of regulations for serious hobbies, but there is such a thing as overkill.

Something seems strange. I remember hearing that the human eye can discern a single photon, as from radioactive breakdown in a wristwatch face. I found something to back that up here and here (actually apparently single photons are discarded as noise; 2 or three are better).

So by my calculations, if you pick a 31st magnitude star in the jpeg and look in the right direction for ten seconds, you will probably get a single photon from the star you picked. Of course you'll get lots of other photons too since your eye can only discern an angle of one arc minute and all those stars are in about 3 arcminutes square.

I just thought it was neat that while obviously the human eye can't beat the HST in most areas it does seem to be about 20,000 times more sensitive than the Hubble's CCDs by those calculations! Anybody know if the CCDs can actually trigger on single photons? What a fantastic picture. I want to pan across it all night.

I made several telescopes when I was a teenager, and have recently taken up grinding glass again after a long hiatus. I was also pleased to find the Central Maine Astronomical Society is in my area and joined last night while visiting their new observatory.

Telescope mirrors can be made by hand with suprisingly simple equipment. An eight-inch diameter telescope will run you about $250, maybe less if you're creative, for the mirror kit, eyepiece, aluminizing, and mounting.

There may be a telescope making or astronomy club in your area. A good way to find out is to subscribe to the ATM mailing list. Another way is to follow some of these links:

• Chabot Telescope Maker's Workshop (Oakland, California)
• Sidewalk Astronomers (Los Angeles and San Francisco)
• Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston
• Stellafane - Springfield Vermont, where the hobby was started in the USA

If you don't want to build a telescope, you can buy one. The telescopes made by Meade and Celestron are well known. You can find ads for dealers in the pages of Sky and Telescope Magazine, which you'll find in many bookstores.

A large number of astronomy products may be found through the Astronomy Mall.

Although the price differential for small telescopes like 6 or 8 inches is not that great between making it oneself and purchasing, the cost of purchasing really large instruments is really prohibitive, while large ones are actually affordable to make, comparable to purchasing a computer. If you start off making an 8 inch mirror, your next mirror can be much larger, say 16 inches, and amateurs commonly make mirrors from 20 to 30 inches, and I think there is a 72 inch mirror nearly complete made by some amateurs. My goal is to have a 40 inch observatory in my backyard.

Although I've listed U.S. organizations and companies, telescope making is practiced world-wide. A while back someone from Iraq subscribed to the ATM list and asked for help obtaining a kit. There are lots of subscribers from Europe and a number from Asia and Africa. Follow the links, and maybe you'll find a club in your home town, or at least within a reasonable distance!

I cannot describe the awe that comes from beholding the wonders of the heavens through a telescope made with one's own hands.