8" Rebuild Complete!

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?!?!?