Gaze At The Moon

Most of the lyrics in Candace' Song have some memory bound up with them.  Here's an example.  When Candace was about 10, she was already a night-owl.  I wanted to find something to help me connect with her, and I knew something night-oriented would be best.  So I bought her a telescope.  One of Wal-Mart's finest...a 60-mm refractor.  One night I spent a half hour locating the Andromeda Galaxy.  When I finally had it in focus, I had her look.  She looked in the eyepiece and saw a vague smudge of gray and asked, "you call that a galaxy?"  I took the challenge and said, "alright, Kid, you're on!"  I then embarked on BOB:

B.O.B. (which stands for "Big Optical Bucket") is a 10-inch newtonian reflector on a dobsonian mount.  That means it is built out of scrap-yard materials (except for the optics) using inventive methods.  For instance, here is how I marked the altitude bearings so that I could cut them straight (perpendicular to the axis of rotation):

After $800 and four years, BOB was finally finished.

14-Dec-2010. I just noticed: I didn't get any pictures of the actual finished telescope.  For years!  Mega-oops!  Here they are.

 


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