Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

Amateur Telescope Making

[NOTE: Participation in Special Interest Groups is limited to MAS members only. For information about joining the MAS, please visit the membership page at www.mnastro.org/membership.]

Purpose

The ATM SIG is an informal, loose-knit group of MAS members who are interested in amateur telescope making. Some of the members are active glass pushers, others are only contemplating building a scope and probably won’t grind their own mirrors. Anyone with an interest in ATMing is welcome to join.

The SIG exists for three main purposes:

1) To encourage and facilitate amateur telescope making (ATM) in Minnesota, and provide workshops, demonstrations and other resources toward this end

2) To create a venue for members to obtain guidance and support during their telescope-making endeavors

3) To swap and share stuff, and possibly acquire supplies in bulk

Coordinator's Welcome

The Amateur Telescope Making SIG brings together MAS members who are interested in making telescopes. Whether you are a complete novice or a seasoned expert, you will find good company in the ATM SIG. Some of us are deep into it, and others are just thinking about it. All kinds are welcome.

One word of advice: if you’re like me, and you have spent many years thinking about building your own telescope, stop thinking about it and DO IT. It’s not as difficult as it seems at first, and it’s never boring or tedious. Yes, there are many steps, and yes, many of them are non-intuitive. But learning about the various techniques and why they work is what makes it fun.

We at the ATM SIG stand ready to help you – or at least point you in the right direction.

Upcoming Meetings / Events

ATM SIG meetings occur on an as-needed basis, generally for a specific purpose – like demonstrating a Foucault tester or viewing a member’s project.

Watch the ATM SIG mailing list for details, or contact the SIG coordinator for an update of planned meetings.

SIG Update

The ATM SIG was formed in July 2002. Since then SIG activities have been limited to a number of email conversations. However, several SIG members seem to be making progress on their projects. If you’d like to post an update here, please put it in the body of an email message and send it to the SIG coordinator.

SIG Members Web Sites

If you have a useful ATM related website that you’d like to share with other SIG members, please contact the SIG coordinator.

Useful Resources on the Internet

LINKS, LISTS & VITAL RESOURCES

http://www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~blombard/ (The ATM resource list. This is a great starting point for someone seeking the “stuff” they need to get started.)
http://www.starastronomy.org/TelescopeMaking/Links/index.html (A great list of useful links. But beware: go there and you may never be seen again.)
http://astro.umsystem.edu/atm/ (The ATM List Archives. To ATMers, this is the Delphic Oracle, the New York Public Library and Monty Python's Flying Circus combined. If you have a question, it is probably answered here – in many different ways, by brilliant people, average people and complete clowns. You get to figure out which is which.)
http://www.astromart.com/messages.asp?forum_id=2 (The Astromart ATM Forum. It’s no ATM List, but it’s pretty darn useful.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bigdob/ (I just found this one, so I can’t attest to its value. But it looks pretty good.)

TUTORIALS

http://www.efn.org/~mbartels/ (The homepage of Mel Bartels – one of the most respected ATMers. He knows what he’s talking about.)
http://bobmay.astronomy.net/ (The hompage of Bob May – another highly respected ATMer. He also knows of what he speaks.)
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/mirror/mirror.html (A nice, quick overview of the techniques of mirror grinding.)
http://users.uniserve.com/~victorp/welcome.html#Subjects (Another good overview site with in-depth pages on each step in telescope making.)
http://home.wanadoo.nl/jhm.vangastel/Astronomy/50cmscope/20inch_e.htm (A very nice site that shows many tricks and techniques in producing a fine 20” truss-tube Dob.)
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Harbour/Foucault.html (An outstanding article that explains Foucault testing better than just about any other source.)
http://www.cloudynights.com/howtos.htm (Lots of telescope-related techniques are available on the venerable “Cloudynights” website.)
http://www.scopereviews.com/make1.html (These pages detail Ed Ting’s mirror-grinding experience. He makes it sound more tedious than it really is, and leaves the impression that mirror grinding is not something a person can tackle at home -- which is far from the truth. It's still interesting and fun to read though. Incidentally, check out Ed’s extensive reviews of telescopes. He is the acknowledged Guru of telescope reviewing online today.)

SOFTWARE & TOOLS

http://home.earthlink.net/~flyj/designie5.html (This site helps you figure out where stuff goes on the tube.)
http://home.att.net/~mikel/ (This is the official source of “TEX”, one of the leading shareware programs for calculating Couder test results.)
http://www.geocities.com/sftonkin/software/SIXTESTS.ZIP (Another popular Couder data-reduction program.)
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Dunna/foucault/ (Yet another popular Couder data-reduction program.)
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Carlin/couder/ (A calculator that assists in designing Couder masks.)
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~lewis/plop/ (This is the source for “Plop”, the leading program for designing mirror cells.)
http://www.geocities.com/sftonkin/software/atmprog.htm (Links to some other ATM-related software.)

BOOKS

Willman Bell sells most of the best current ATM books. Another good source is University Optics, whose prices seem to be slightly cheaper. Check the ATM Resources page mentioned above for a more complete list of ATM books.

http://www.willbell.com/tm/dobtel.htm (“The Dobsonian Telescope” by Kriege & Berry. Kriege is the founder of Obsession Telescopes and Berry is one of the Granddaddys of ATMing. This is an outstanding book.)
http://www.willbell.com/tm/tm3.htm (“How to Make a Telescope” by Jean Texereau. This book is a bit outdated and kind of strangely organized, but it’s still a key authoritative source on mirror grinding techniques.)

GRINDING MACHINES

Increasingly people are building their own machines to take some of the elbow-grease out of glass pushing. Here are some resources on the subject of grinding machines.

http://www.mirror-o-matic.com/ (Plans for the popular “Mirror-O-Matic” grinding machine.)
http://home.attbi.com/~dcass/machine.html (Dan Cassaro’s pages dedicated to grinding machines. Dan supplies large, thin mirrors for outrageously low prices too.)
http://www.carlb.de/Grinding.html (Contrarian plans for a cheap grinding machine.)
http://www.mindspring.com/~davebevel/grinder/grinder.html (Another machine grinder’s site.)

E-mail Discussion Forum

The purpose of the forum is to facilitate communication among members of the SIG.

To join the group, visit http://www.mnastro.org/forums and follow the instructions. A link to an archive of all messages sent to the original email based listserv is available by pointing your browser to http://lists.mnastro.org/pipermail/atm/.

Contact Information:

For more information regarding this Special Interest Group, please contact:

Ben Mullin
benjamin.t.mullin@gmail.com