The finished 8" Scope in the Hocking Hills
I finished the 8" scope last weekend to make sure I was able to take it with me to the Hocking Hills. The scope has exceeded my expectations in many ways, but first, some details on how I finished it.
I followed the same design as my 12" and 16" scope except this time I build a tripod mount for the scope. I reused the same struts and secondary ring.
Close up of the back of the mirror box. I had an extra weight left over to add some weight to the back end. It is a little tail heavy, but that is easily remedied with a finder scope.
Here is the leg/ground board interface. I used a couple pieces of 3/4" birch plywood glued to the sides of a couple 3/4" pieces glued together. I really like the way the end plies look. A 3/8" bolt attaches the legs to the ground board.
I had a set of chains from an existing tripod that I no longer use and attached them to the legs.
I got the opportunity to use the scope out under dark skies this past weekend. The scope worked very well. In fact, it worked so well, I forgot about the scope altogether! The action was nice and smooth, with quick dampening of any vibrations. I spent about 8 hours combined between the two nights picking off all my favorite objects and concentrated on a bunch of new objects in Cetus, Sculptor, and Aquarius. Jupiter looked so wonderful on Friday night. Nice detail.
I have a feeling this will become my favorite scope soon.
Ok, what will my next project be?!?!?
