My main concern has been a potential cost overrun, one that I would have to foot out of my own pocket. Granted, I am willing to cover some operating expenses on this project, but having built two of these sort of telescopes before, I know how quickly things can get out of hand. So, I've done some brainstorming to cut costs but not corners.
My first concern has been tools and workshop capacity. Living in an apartment with a pregnant wife, I've had to rely quite heavily on the generosity of my in-laws and their ample garage and basement workshop space. However, niether they nor I have significant woodworking tools, namely jigs and dovetail stuff, and I have no real money for wood.
I did get some donated for the secondary cage rings, but that didn't go very far when it came down to it.
So, in the interest of efficiency, I looked around online for a kit or some similar shortcut to a traditional Dob. What I found was quite amazing, actually!
Dennis Steele at Dobstuff ( http://www.dobstuff.com/ ) sells reasonably priced, unfinished kits for this sort of project, and after talking with him on the phone, I think I'm going to go with one of his kits. This will save some invaluable time and could have me observing at local schools by the end of May. All I have to do is provide the following parts:
- Crayford Focuser
- Secondary Spider Mount
- Secondary Mirror
- Primary Mirror
- Primary Mount
The scope would look like this:
Since Moonlite was so generous in providing the focuser, all that remains for me to obtain are the optics and the spider!
More updates soon! I've got work to do!
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