It arrived Friday the 26th. Today I headed down to my brother Lynn's place. It started out as a beautiful sunny, clear day. Lynn and I put the primary mirror into the rocker box.
We then put the secondary mirror into its holder.
This gives you an idea of the size of the secondary mirror.
Then it was time to trim the truss poles to their correct length. Here's Lynn
getting to use the bandsaw on his ShopSmith tool (he really likes it when he's
presented with opportunities to use his ShopSmith!)
And of course we had to make sure the ends were smooth. Time for the belt sander.
Now we attach the UTA (Upper Tube Assembly) to the truss poles (as you saw in the
images on the previous page).
Now we pause to appreciate the size of this telescope. And we're damned happy
about it!
Here it is with the light shroud.
Here's looking through the top of the UTA at the primary mirror, with the shroud
in place. At this point we were collimating the scope using a laser collimator.
Here's a shot of the tailgate (the bottom of the rocker box) showing the 25 inch
Galaxy Optics f5 mirror. This mirror was hand-made by John and Sky Hudek at
Galaxy Optics (they even signed it).
It's a wonderful piece of optics.
In this shot you can also see the fan that is installed to help bring the mirror
into thermal equilibrium with the night air.
Here I am with the scope in its shroud. Very impressive looking telescope. Very
tired but happy Mike. As you can see behind me, the skies of Monterey have once
again clouded up. It started out as a clear day today.
However, things improved a bit and on the same day we installed the mirrors, my
25 inch Obsession telescope had its First Light!