SingAstro

my big problem with the bino is always the neck.

i would like to buy one of those Sky Window mounts (with the big mirror) but they aren't exactly cheap (and not cheap to ship).

I bought some first-surface mirrors from Surplus Shed before but they were too small.....

My experience with these has been dismal. Arrived mis-collimated and too cheap to send back to the US. BTW anybody has experience with Grand Eye HK? http://www.grandeye.com.hk/7yearsale.htm I was in HK the past few days but didn't go to his store. Are the prices on his site up-to-date? the 20x80 tri...

whoah so Normand Fullum is into these things now!

I kinda like his "Lord of the Rings" small telescopes (small being 8" to 12").

you could use a Dremel with cutting wheel. Will take ages, but if you're careful the results are quite clean.

PC case modders use Dremels a lot for these types of jobs.

big question is.. who is building these mirrors?
i'm betting it's not intermountain, swayze, royce...

The Garrett, Celestron, etc. binoculars are all PRC made. Even the Astro-Physics 15x70 is made in China. I have the Celestron Skymaster 15x70 and it arrived from the US (Astronomics) mis-collimated. It was not worth it to send back ($$ expensive shipping $$) so I tried to collimate it myself. There ...

hi Richard, agree with all your posts. I actually completed a spherical dob but encountered many of the problems you mention: difficulty of collimation, very heavy base (15 lb barbell weights inside), denting of the sphere... but the thing is my carpentry skills are bad. so using a sphere has benefi...

I tried to build a "trackball telescope" some time back... using my 10" mirror. I used a 16" diameter acrylic sphere which I bought from True Value Hardware. The problems were: 1) a 16" sphere is too small for a 10" mirror; the mirror sits too high in the sphere so a to...

I believe there was an instance in the US where a 5-milliwatt laser (very similar to the Howie Glatter etc) temporarily blinded a helicopter pilot when it was shone into the cockpit.

So I expect the laser pointers used for presentations aren't powerful enough... but the green astro pointers are.

$1000 for an achromat :-P

Megrez 88 is $898 US and that's free shipping from Taiwan.

Or does the $1000 include a mount? (in which case it would be more attractive)