I watched a very interesting show on TV tonight. It was about John Dobson, an astronomer and cosmologist. He has some very interesting ideas about the universe which I won't mangle here
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not so much hero worshipmcfinniganNovember 20 2006, 08:26:31 UTC
as honest recognition of John Dobson's genius.
Prior to his arrival, the only 'easy to use' telescopes came on rickey altitude azimuth mounts, and generally didn't have the aperture to show any deep sky objects.
Larger reflecting and refracting telescopes had to be equatorially mounted or yoke-mounted, and these mounts are BIG.
John Dobson had the flash of inspiration that allowed him to design and popularise a simple, easy to built telescope design which scales from apertures of 100mm up to apertures of a metre or greater. The beauty of the system is that even a 300Kg telescope can still be gently nudged back into position as the object in question moves through the eyepiece field of view.
Sabyr - if you want to read up on building your own telescope, check out the Cloudy Nights ATM forum at www.cloudynights.com; there are some incredibly skilled builders there.
I was able to build my second telescope with simple hand-held power tools.
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Prior to his arrival, the only 'easy to use' telescopes came on rickey altitude azimuth mounts, and generally didn't have the aperture to show any deep sky objects.
Larger reflecting and refracting telescopes had to be equatorially mounted or yoke-mounted, and these mounts are BIG.
John Dobson had the flash of inspiration that allowed him to design and popularise a simple, easy to built telescope design which scales from apertures of 100mm up to apertures of a metre or greater. The beauty of the system is that even a 300Kg telescope can still be gently nudged back into position as the object in question moves through the eyepiece field of view.
Sabyr - if you want to read up on building your own telescope, check out the Cloudy Nights ATM forum at www.cloudynights.com; there are some incredibly skilled builders there.
I was able to build my second telescope with simple hand-held power tools.
McF
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