16 inch F5 Ultra light Telescope

The major design constraint on this scope was that it be light enough for me to carry up and down the basement steps where it is stored. It breaks down into pieces that met that goal. The optical tube with the mirror weighs 33 lbs. 20 lbs of that is the mirror that I ground and figured myself. This scope incorporates several ideas from many other people on the net. In particular from Jim Miller the use of a bicycle wheel rim for the upper ring and binder clips to attach it to the truss poles. Jim also used three trusses instead of the usual 4. The mirror is 1 inch thick plate glass and has a fan at the back for cooling.

Upgraded GoTo using Servo Cat and Argo Navis

Recently made a new rocker base and added ServoCat and Argo Navis as the goto system.

Spider

The spider is made from aluminum roof flashing and held in tension. Its vanes are offset to reduce induced vibrations as described in Texerau and on Mel Bartel's site. The diagonal holder is also a design I found on the Web at Diagonal holder

I machined the focuser from Aluminum using the design from Jim Sapp at An Easy to Make, Crayford-type Focuser

Mirror Cell

The mirror cell is similar to a design by Nils Olaf Carlin. It uses only two collimation bolts and is accessable from the front while looking through the eyepiece. Nils Olaf Carlin's Web Page

The 18 point cell rockers are mounted inside the square aluminum tubing cell frame. That reduces the cell thickness and helps shorten the OTA length.

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