140401

140401 SBAU Telescope Workshop
Attendees: TomW, JerryW, Sam from Westmont, TimC, DmitriiZ, BruceM, ChrisU, TomT, MikeChibnik, and DavidH with Madeline, Amanda, and a small one riding on his back! 
[Wow! 13]

 -DavidH trying to tighten Allen screws on old Celestron mount motors; worm gear was seizing otherwise. Orion Skyview Pro, per BruceM, seems identical and info may be available on internet.  (see maybe this: http://www.company7.com/orion/mounts/orionsvpmount.html ; see manual near bottom of page)

 -Dmitriiz polishing his 12.5" about 30 minutes until his solution ran out.

-TimC grinding at 500 after removing worst of last week's scratch at 320 grit. 
-TimC working on next "From the Workshop" #5 notes regarding parabolic shape and mirror strokes.

-TomW melting more pitch for pouring small tool for ChrisU polishing of 10", but Chris had to go back home to get the mirror for forming the pitch lap properly.

-BruceM purchased a Celestron C8 orange tube OTA ($292, ebay?) with dovetail mount for improvement over his 5", but will see if mirror condition needs attention.  

On 4/1/2014 11:40 PM, TimC wrote:

Thanks all for coming out this rainy Tuesday. We ended up with 13 people tonight. I have updated our workshop list and this is the main reason for this email. You will be receiving this type email before our workshop scheduled meetings or cancelations. We normally meet at the Broder Building across the walking bridge at The Museum of Natural History. We meet between 7:30-9pm each Tuesday. 
Tonight we had a few guests that were very welcome. I hope they had a great time and were interested in the doings of our little group. There are many informed members that have a lot of information that you may be interested in or answers to questions you may have in many phases of telescope making as well as Astro imaging and much more! 
Tonight for example of the goings on, we had one person polishing a 12.5" mirror, one person grinding an 8" mirror and a pitch lap being poured. Also, we had a person with parts of his mount and yet another showing his "Flaming Tomato", an 8" Dob. I just love it. What a great name for a scope! 
Over the course of an evening many things may take place. I love the offshoot conversations that happen all the time. But I will just end this by saying sometimes when we get together we just find ourselves visiting, taking a deep breath and letting the whole roaring thing go by, settling in for comfortable conversation that just drifts from topic to topic, till finally we must gather ourselves once more and return to the moment and bid ourselves well, until we meet again. 
And so.... till we meet again,
T