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Jörg Peters wants to collect as much light as possible in to both eyes. Therefore he built an 28 inch sophisticated all aluminum bino telescope. The Alt/Az is computerized with a Dan Gray / Mel Bartels servo control.
Such precisely made mirros of that size I saw never before. |
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Bigger, Thinner, Faster! Kai Kretzschmar openes new horizons at large thin mirror making. His 28" f/3,1 mirror is made of Schott Borofloat at 25 mm edge thickness leaving less than 11 mm in the middle! Using modern interferometric test, sophisticated test support and local polishing techniques make this feasible. More pictures here |
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Timm Klose doesn't like to stay on ladders. Therefore he designed his 20" f/4 as Lowrider. Most parts are made of aluminum at a total weight of 35 kg only. The mirror was refigured by Roland Herrmann. Details: finished, raw Assembly, top finished, top raw, mirrorbox finished, mirrorbox raw Tim builds more and more Ultralight Lowrider Dobsonians and travels with them to Namibia and South Africa. Latest project is a 28" f/3.1. See also his innovative observing chairs. Here is his Website |
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Werner Reimann's 20" f/5,6 Lowrider with only 27 kg (60 lb) total weight. Due to the folded lightpath a small ladder is sufficient even though the focal length is 2.88 m. The mirror is selfmade out of 25 mm thick Borosilicate glass. Werner is a master of large ultrathin mirrors and has made several telescopes for his club members. See Astronomischer Verein Schwerin
His latest extreme mirror is a 64,5 cm f/3,7 out of 25 mm Borofloat |
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Jörg Peters minimalist all aluminum air
travel Dob at under 14 kg (30lb). More pictures here |
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Achim Strnad's finished mirror pulled off
the bolts out of the board where it was stored, fell on the tiles and
broke into countless pieces (see
picture). But he is a real mirror master, this accident
couldn't stop him from making a new one that became at least as good as
the first one. The telescope is called Phoenix, weights 23 kg (50 lb) in total and is
assembled via 8 bicycle quick clamps in a view minutes. To Achim's ATM-Pages |
 Image by Wolfgang Rohr |
Ernst Schoeberl (2. from left) showed up at
ITT with a full carbon telescope in sandwich construction at a total
weight of 23.5 kg. The mirror weights 15.2 kg. The whole carbon
structure tips the scale at 6.8 kg! More pictures here |
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Peter Wickelmaier with his 10" f/6 with
a sled focuser. This allows enough travel for use with a binoviewer
wothout compensation lens. The mirror is self made More pictures here |
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Erhard Hänssgen enters the Meter class with
his 42.1 inch f/4.5 monster scope. As you see from the picture, a quite
"handsome" size. The primary mirror thickness is 2.5"
only. Various fans blow from the back and the side, to cool the mirror.
He chose mahogany ship-plywood and coated it with epoxy. The instrument
is transported in a trailer. Looking at the Orion Nebula you loose all dark adoption. More pictures here Pictures from ITV 2003 Pictures from setup and break down procedure ITV 2003 Many dditional pictures on the webpage of Robert Houdart |
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Jörg Peters impressed at ITV 2002 with his
25" f/4.5 nobel Dob, which he just finished for the meeting after 3
years of building. The powder coated all aluminum altazimuth
construction is equipped with digital setting cycles and stepper motors
with GOTO function. The instrument can be disassembled into two parts
and transported in a van. More pictures here |
 click on the images to expand them to higher resolution
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Klaus
Jünemann's 6 kg (13 lb) light and ultra compact 8" Chapeau Claque
at the International Telescope Meeting Vogelsberg (ITV) 1996. All
components fit into each other, the trusses are foldable and fit into
every suitcase or backpack. The 4 parallel truss design is structurally
inferior, but it works fine at this size. In order to bring the balance
point down, counterweights are being used in form of wooden boxes mounted
low at the bearings, which can be filled on the field with stones, bolts
or eyepieces.
At a later stage this scope was equipped with digital setting circles. |
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The Master himself with an improved version of his 9" Bino at the Bavarian Telescope Meeting (BTM) 2000. The eye separation is adjusted at one of the primaries with a turning knob on a long shaft and a cord mechanism. The smallest possible separation is is even sufficient for my small head. Finally I could enjoy high in the Alps my favorite pancake edge on galaxy NGC 5907 floating in 3-D. |
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The 10 inch f/10 "Leviathan" with a tiny diagonal mirror of 25 mm only. I made the mirror, Klaus the mechanics. Quite long and bulky, but brutally sharp. This was the first telescope through which I saw the Encke gap in Saturn's ring system. |
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Stefan Hammel's award winning 3,1"
f/6,6 Mahogany Bino. The eye separation can here be adjusted by sliding one
of the tubes along it's axis. Wonderful craftsmanship of a professional
woodworker.
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Inspired by my 17.5" Aristarchos Bernd Schatzmann showed up with his18" wood art: Inclined mirror box corners and crescent moon shaped altitude bearings. I decided for similar bearings on my 24" too. A bit heavier than my 17.5", but solid like the rock of Gibraltar. |
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...Mirror mirror in my hands... |
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Rafael Benner's 30" f/5 with the appropriate large footprint leather at ITV 1996. Extreme aperture fever infection risk! At good conditions the Helix fills the eyepiece with overwhelming details. It even shows structure in the 6-th component of Stephan's Quintet NGC 7320C! |
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Ignoring all good meant advises
of other ATM-ers Rüdiger Heins made his 18" f/5 out of 24
mm (0.95") plate glass and supports it on bubble warping laminate (see
image). Result: It works fine, the mirror became very good and that
is what counts at the bottom line! The highlights: Accessible mirror
cell from the back side, one ring top, cheap aluminum trusses from tent
surplus store fixed with bicycle clamps.
The coating was not set yet, when he started his next one: A 24.4" f/4.5. Here are Rüdiger's ATM pages: http://www.geocities.com/ruedigerheins
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Jörg Peter's compact 8" f/4 travel
scope at the ITV 2001. The trusses are all connected with each other.
The ultra low Helical Crayford focuser is home made by a friend. All
aluminum parts are powder coated, they look really professional.
For transport all parts fit into each other, the altitude bearings are rotated into a horizontal position, the rocker serves as the cover, wonderful work
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Gundula Hinrichsen's ultra short 18" f/3,45 came to the Telscope meeting ITV 2001 into a Porsche. Elegant straight forward construction. At 1,55 m zenith height even small people can avoid the ladder. |
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This gentleman is taken into this list in advance. His dust collecting 10" mirror still waits to be build into a travel scope. |
