Almost...

Unfortunately, these Telescopes never saw first light.  In fact, they were roughly assembled only once for these photographs. 

The "Single Arm Fork" (left)) was made of a cast aluminum and the "Broken Arm Fork" (right) was out of welded plate aluminum.  There is no doubt in my mind that these beautiful Telescopes would have been a show stoppers, but were they a successful production design?  The Telescope was intended to compete against the "tired" German Equatorial Mounted Telescopes.

They were an evolution from the Torque Tube Mount (see 10 inch Telescope).  It offered the "pier-less" low profile of the Torque Tube, but without the counterweight.  In the above designs, compactness was a goal.

In the end, necessarily high retail pricing and the lack of reliable sub-contractors discouraged me from pursuing the manufacturing of the mounting after only building and selling a few. It simply wasn't fun.  Though, it could be said, almost all who looked at the demo, ordered it immediately.  Never-the-less, for the reasons stated, the project was discontinued. 

10 inch f/5 Torque Tube Reflector

Now in college, I decided that I needed a more portable Telescope.  The 8 inch f/7.2 was too large to put in a small college room.  I was beginnig to learn the value of the "minimalist" design.

I contemplated building a new short focus 8 inch Telescope, but I did not want to make what would likely be a back-words move in performance.  So I opted for a short focus 10 inch instead and sold the 8 inch.  I was fascinated by an article is Sky & Telescope that discussed different Equatorial Mountings.  It spoke highly of the "Torque Tube" design.  This was the mount that I choose to build.  

This design placed the counterweight to the rear of the mount, thereby removing it as an encumbrance to the observer.  This is a design Boller & Chivens chose for their research telescopes.  The long Right Ascension (RA) Axis housing replaced the pedestal.  A "Torque Tube" rotated around the outside of the RA axis housing, but does not touch it.  This Torque Tube, carried the counterweight at the rear.  The telescope could rotate 360 degrees around the RA housing without hitting any obstacles.  Unlike the 8 inch, the 10 inch did not require a ladder to look through it. 

The telescope was completed in 1977.  Again, the mounting was built out of iron plumbing pipe.  Though the counterweight weighed 40 pounds and the telescope's steel shafts were solid instead of hollow pipe, as with the 8 inch, the 10 only weighed 5 pounds more than the 8 inch.  140 pounds in all.  The telescope's 4 foot tube was a portability plus as well.   The mounting configuration and short tube, was my first efforts at creating a "minimalist" design.  It still falls short of the larger aperture Dobsonians I built not to mention how it compares to the 1/4th lighter 10 inch "Traveler".  

Some time after the Telescope was sold (in 1979) to Lynn Carroll,  Mel Bartels was able to get a hold of it and greatly improve it by constructing and installing "Sector Drives".  (Click here to see picture on his website)

Picture taken February 1978 in Springfield, Oregon apartment. .

Cross Sectional view of the Torque Tube Mount.

8 inch f/7 German Equatorial Reflector

Back in 1972, at age 15, I decided I wanted to move up from my Equatorially mounted 60mm JC Pennies refractor.  That 60mm was a move up from a prior 60mm that wasn't Equatorially mounted.  The original plan was to purchase a "Criterion Dynamax 6" for $199 plus shipping (see image below).  

The decision to build the telescope came about when a friend talked me into purchasing an 8 inch mirror blank and mirror cell from a friend of his for $25.00.  It was part of a telescope making kit from "Edmund Scientific.  Realizing that it would gather 80% more light than a 6, I went for it.  I then sent it and $70 to  "Cave Optical Company" for completion.  In the meantime, I went to work on designing and building the rest of the telescope.  I joined the Eugene Astronomical Society (EAS) to acquire confidence and help in what I was doing.  Charles Coffey graciously donated a lot of his time on the project.   Jerry Pennigore, nearly shattered my confidence as he too was working on an 8 inch and expressed that he was having numerous problems.  I would latter learn that he was trying to build a "Swiss Watch" of a Telescope.   

The 8 inch Telescope was completed in 1973, if you include the refinements.  At the time, it, Jerry's and the club owned telescope, were the largest in the EAS.  The mounting was made of the high tech material of the day, iron plumbing pipe.  A 3 inch “sanitary Y” was used to achieve the latitude.  The Telescope weighed 135 lbs.  

I eventually added a Guide Scope when I purchased one of those variable power 15x- 60x Tasco 60mm Refractor Telescopes.  I got it used for $10.  I had to cut the some of the tube off after removing the light suppressing image correcting lenses.  The little Scope only served to throw the balance off, but it looked nice sitting up there.  My 6x30mm Finder came from Unitron, a company that once built beautiful Refractor Telescopes.  If I could do it over, I would not put the Guide Scope on and I would have made the pedestal much shorter.  That alone would have made it a very nice Telescope for it's time. 

This Telescope reflected the design philosophy of their era.  Build them big and heavy.  At 1/9th the light gathering power of the 24 inch, it outweighed

The Dynascope 6 by Criterion (pictured on the right), with it's $199.95 price tag, made it one of the most popular Telescopes in the early 70's.  It was the Telescope I sought to purchase before I took on the building of the 8 inch.  Today, the Dynascope is considered a classic by collectors.  It is spoken well of in terms of it's mechanical and optical performance.  The picture is the same shown on the inside back cover of numerous Sky & Telescope magezines. 

4.25 inch f/4.5 Coulter Kit RFT

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