Nope, in fact I've never been to Riverside. I would prefer to not enter in any kind of competition on that scale. The tension and stress of competition take away all the enjoyment...but thanks for the kind words, you and Joe are doing wonders for my ego! I stopped grinding mirrors about 30 years ago, when I realized there were others who could do it faster than I, and just as good or better, freeing me up to work on the parts of the telescope that show ;) Since then I have purchased my mirrors. I usually list the source on the Gallery- the yellow 8" f/3.75 came from Intermountain Optics, but I didn't buy it, the man who commissioned the scope bought it and asked me to build a telescope around it. I took the job as a challenge- it's still the optically "fastest" Newtonian I have ever built. It's owned by Mr. Gerry Bourke of Murray, UT. Built about eight or ten years ago. I can't recall the weight. It had a fiberglass tube (of my manufacture), aluminum bridge plates, trunnions made of MDF cores with thin aluminum ring bearing surfaces, cast aluminum mirror cell, pretty standard stuff. The tube rings were a very old cast-aluminum pair made by Pacific Instruments (I sure miss that company) that I re-conditioned.
From: <astrodeb@charter.net>
Do you ever take your telescopes down to RMTC? They are worthy of an award or two. By the way, your yellow 8" f/3.75 newtonian caught my attention. How much does the OTA weigh? Did you grind your own mirrors or do you buy them commercially?
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