
Although I have always been interested in scientific matters, including astronomy of
course, it was only after retirement from the BBC that I was able to take up practical
astronomy. Two things that really helped were, making my own Dobsonian
telescope, and joining Wycombe Astronomical Society.
At this time, towards the end of the last century, telescopes for sale were very
limited and unsophisticated, so it was a good option to make one's own – a
Dobsonian of course, being relatively easy to make. This type of 'scope was named
after its inventor John Dobson, a sometime Californian monk who worked out a very
simple way of mounting a Newtonian reflector telescope.
Really keen telescope makers grind their own mirrors. I would have loved to have
done this but doubted if I would have enough patience to see it though. So I decided
to nip over to Tring and order a David Hinds mirror, but was disappointed to find he
had recently stopped manufacture. So I got a 8 inch Orion Optics mirror and an
elliptical secondary. Then, using wood from an old kitchen, some wooden batons and
a sheet of Formica I made my Dob which to my surprise worked quite well.

At this point I thought it would be good to find a local Astronomy club and of course
up came WAS. It was very stimulating to meet other members including other DIY
telescope makers. One DOB I remember even had electronic tracking. One very
useful learning experience came when I undertook the WAS 50 project. In order to
complete this in a reasonable time it was a case of learning that 'astronomers do it
all night' which speeded things up quite a bit. This was in the days when
photography was done with film – things should be much easier now with digital
cameras.
Another great thing about WAS is the range of most excellent lectures. These have,
over the years, been a great way of expanding my own small knowledge of life, the
universe and everything.
Fortunately by the time of the Venus Transit on June 6th 2004 I had acquired a digital
camera (Nikon 990 with 3.4 Mpixel chip and costing over £900) . I was able to fix
the camera to the Dob to image the complete transit.
David

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