OK you guys woke me up and you are full of humor. I will trow out a topic. What if you wanted to make your own telescope? Where would you find low cost high quality lens or mirrors? Would you consider making the optics by casting materials in a plastic membrane or spend the dollars to buy them. Is there any military or other surplus worth considering? I have a small ranch so away from city a bit and lots of room. I can weld and have the equipment needed. I have access to large diameter used steel pipe of most sizes at reasonable cost. I found this link on the web while typing this posting and it took me away for a bit. Will have to spend more time here too: http://www.mdpub.com/scopeworks/ I could build it on a trailer so I could take it to star parties or I could build a fixed installation. Also have the ability and motors needed to build a tracking system. This is something I have been thinking of doing for some time and it will be a long term project. I have Solidworks 3D software. So as ideas develop I can make a detailed design. Also have optical simulation software to test ideas. Questions that will likly come: What will it be used for? What is the budget if any? > Ideas???? _______________________________________________ Fedora astronomy mailing list astronomy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Astronomy https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/astronomy
