Amateur telescope making
The 'Celano Telescope Controller' and other motorizing hardware
Mel Bartels' 13 inch 'zip' Dob, a folding telescope
Mel Bartels: Folding (and sliding) Telescopes
Carl's Astronomy page: Amateur Telescope Making
Arie's Dobsonian Telescopes
Martin Maters Astronomy website
Peter Koek: Amateur Telescope making
Berthold Hamburger: Telescope Making, Optics and Astronomy
Eric Royer's 14 Inch binocular telescope
Chris Forder's ultra portable 10" travelscope
Uwe Glahn's 27" f/4.2 light weight Dobsonian
German ATM wiki, with software
Jerry Oltion: a simple star-test telescope
Rex Kindell's circle cutter (!!)
The Alt-Az Initiative. Publications, references and links
Telescope Making: downloadable issues
Gary Seronik's ATM pages
David Erzeel: Argo Navis & ServoCAT (Dutch site)
Greg Babcock's 24" f/4 ultra light Dobsonian
Greg Babcock's 20 inch f/3.55 telescope
Dan Gray's 28 inch motorized string Dobsonian telescope
Ross Sakett: Amateur telescope making (single pole Dobsonians)
Jim Miller's 18" f/4 lightweight telescope
Bruce Mills-'Scope Stuff
Bob Lombardi: Mechanical Design of Telescopes for the Amateur
Sterrenwacht Almere
Stathis Kafalis' website
Marty's ATM pages
ATM archives
Dale Eason's 16 inch ultra light Dobsonian
Toshimi Taki's homepage
Dobson making. Translations of very good French articles!
Fork mounted Newtonians (French site)
Oldham
Optical: Basic Telescope Design
The ATM page: a www resource
for amateur telescope making
TheATMsite, resources and
techniques for the amateur
Dale
Kellers ATM pages
Mel Bartels:
Telescopes and telescope making
Mel
Bartels:Trilateral mounted 20 inch f/4.8 newtonian
Mel Bartels: A smaller upper cage
Company
Seven: Astronomical formulae/astronomical formulae for telescopes
Steven
Lee: My telescopes
Lockwood Custom Optics
AstroSystems products
Doug David:
Doug's universe, with an article about building his 18"scope
Very
nice telescope designs (Luc Arnolds pages)
Bruce Sayre: Large Newtonian binoculars (with 22" binoculars)
Adrie Suijkerbuijk's 260 mm lightweight 'flying' Dobsonian.
Dumpster Dave's ATM page
Pierre Desvaux's 300 mm travel Dobson
Daniel Restemeier's site (German site)
David Vernet's 600 mm f/3.3 Dobsonian
Robert Houdart's 110 cm (43.3") Dobsonian telescope
Arjan te Marvelde's ATM pages
Philippe Mollet: Bouw zelf een telescoop
How to pack a mirror for transport
Huygens Optics
Mirror making
General information, techniques, grinding, polishing
and figuring tools etc.
Martin Cibulski: Mirror Polishing Simulation
Mel Bartels: CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) or 'polishing is a chemical mechanical process'
The Mirror-o-Matic: Machines, Documentation, Information for ATM's
Berthold Hamburger's Mirror-o-Matic machine, with video's
Polishing machines
Waite Research. Links to mirror making video's
Stellafane: Amateur Telescope making; detailed Mirror Making information !!!
Making a 71 cm f/3 mirror (in German)
John D. Upton: Making a (sub-diameter) Tile-on-Plaster Tool
Mold for a fast, perfect pitch lap
Mel Bartels: the joy of making mirrors
Mel Bartels: large, thin mirror grinding
Bob May: So you really want to build a Telescope Mirror
Bob May: 'Making a Dental Stone Tool' method of grinding of a mirror
David A Harbour: The Winburn Channeled Hex Tile Tool
Mike Lockwood: articles about mirror making and mirror making equipment
Stathis Kafalis: Spiegelschleifen-ein Volkssport (in German)
Stathis Kafalis: Spiegelschleif workshop-Materialbestellung (in German)
Volkssterrenwacht Armand Pien, Gent: ATM producten( in Dutch)
Newport Glass: table of grit sizes
Scratch-Dig Optical Surface Specification
Foucault test and testers
Urania (Belgium): De Foucaulttest (very good site in Dutch!)
Stathis Kafalis' Foucault Tester
Martin Brückner's Foucault Tester
Gunnar Overbeck's Foucault tester
David Harbour's Foucault Tester
Nils Olof Carlin's Mirror Zone Calculator
Andreas Reifke: Foucault Test Analysis (download page for program)
James Lerch's FigureXP download (Another Foucault analysis program)
Bob May: Foucault Testing and testers
Stellafane: Data reduction software
Interferometry
The Bath interferometer (and how to build one)
Interferogram analysis
Bath interferometer photo gallery
Dale Eason: how to set up the Bath interferometer (YouTube video)
David Rowe: Interferometry and Fringe Analysis
Vladimir Galagoza's Bath interferometer page
Astrochonum: Bath interferometer feedback
Wolfgang Rohr: Bath interferometer
Wolfgang Rohr: (many) mirror test results (in German)
Michael Peck: Interferometry, mathematics, algorithms, and data
Michael Peck: Optimal separation of mirror and instrumental aberrations
Stephen C. Koehler: Milligan 12.3" (Part I), Interferometry Comparison
Steve Koehler: Interferometry/Foucault Profile Comparison
Steve Koehler: Foucault/Interferometry comparisons
Vladimir Sacek: Zernike aberrations
'Easy' RAW mod for Philips and Logitech Webcams
Other tests
Phase contrast test for optical roughness
Peter Koek: Waineo Null Test
The ATM's workshop: Testing the Quality of Polish
The ATM's workshop: The matching Ronchi Test
Surface roughness. Measurement, analyses, specification
The Roddier test (in French)
Le test de Roddier (another Roddier test article)
John Sherman: The spot test
Computerizing
Mel Bartels:
Computer operated telescopes
Eric Green: Computerizing a 16" Starmaster
Dale
Eason: Mounting stepper motors
Rex
Kindell: Nylon wormgears
Ben Davies'
scope-drive manual
Telescope optics
Vladimir Sacek: Amateur Telescope Optics
Brian Tung: RMS and Strehl ratio
James C. Wyant's
optics page
Bentec Hyperaspherical
Optical Surfaces - free software and polymer optics manufacturing
Mel
Bartels: Rating mirrors
Phase Contrast
Paul
Laughton: Telescope Performance Factors
Central Obstruction and Wave Error
David
Whysong: A calculation of Airy disks for various telescopes
Tony Gondola: Secondary obstruction test
Astrooptik und Messtechnik (German)
R.F. Royce: Precision
optical components
Figuring
a Paraboïdal mirror by thermal predistortion
Ivan
Krastev: MODAS; Modern Optical Design and Analysis Software
Massimo Riccardi: ATMOS,
Amateur Telescope Maker Optical Design and Analysis Software
Mauro Da Lio: How different apertures behave under the same seeing
Mauro Da Lio: Aperture masks and seeing
Thierry
Legault: what are the effects of obstruction
Robert
Ariail: Cleaning mirrors with collodion
Mirror cooling
Brian Greer:
Understanding thermal behaviour in newtonian reflectors
Antoon Maeseele: Cooling a telescope mirror
Brian Greer: Using fans with Newtonian telescopes
Robert Houdart's mirror cooling calculation program
Anthony Wesley: Cooling a 10" Newtonian
Arjen te Marvelde: Modelling thermal mirror deformation
Mauro Da Lio: Boundary layer seeing
Mauro Da Lio: Yet another method for cooling mirrors
Mauro Da Lio: mirror deformation as cuased by cooling the mirror
Cloudy Nights discussion about mirror cooling
Mirror supports
David Lewis: PLOP; mirror cell calculator
Robert Houdart: Mirror edge support calculator
Frédéric
Géa: Astatic primary mirror supports
Frédéric
Géa: Piano wire lateral primary mirror supports
Arjan te Marvelde: Mirror cell induced astigmatism
Mark
D. Holm: Mirror cells for amateur telescope makers
Mark
D. Holm: Cell Parts. A program for laying out flotation cell components
Mark D. Holm: Mirror Cell Design Space
Nils
Olof Carlin's "Update pages" with the double sling lateral support
Nils
Olof Carlin: Mirror edge supports. A case study of the sensitivity to
forces out of the mirror plane
Steve
Vegos: examples of PLOP mirror cells
Robert Houdart's 54 points mirror cell for a 43.3" Dobsonian
Collimating
Astrowiki artikel over het collimeren van een Newtontelescoop (in Dutch)
Jason D.: The collimation curse of the ROC
Steve Smallcombe: Rear View Barlowed Laser Collimation
Brian Greer: Adventures in
collimation
David C. Nicholls: The 'Krupa' collimator revised
Nils Olof Carlin: Collimating
a newtonian telescope
Nils Olof Carlin: Collimation with a barlowed laser (S&T artikel)
Nils Olof Carlin: Collimate your Newtonian Reflector
Nils
Olof Carlin: Colimating with a holographic laser
Nils Olof Carlin: The
YACHT, a new collimating tool.
Nils Olof Carlin: Some
collimation myths (strongly recommended)
Nils Olof Carlin: The
autocollimator
Nils Olof Carlin: The
autocollimator and its reflexions
Cloudy Nights discussion about improved (2-hole) autocollimator
Collimating procedure with 2-hole autocollimator
Mel Bartels: Optically Aligning Newtonian Optics
Thierry Legault: The
collimation
Adam Perkins: Making
a sight tube for collimation
Vic Menard's addendum to his 5th ed. of 'New Perspectives on Newtonian collimation'
Scott
McCluney: a Treatise in Newtonian collimation
Collimating a laser collimator
Collimation of a Schmidt Newtonian
Collimating a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope
Don Pensack: Passive Tool Collimation and the Newtonian
Collimating a refractor
Newtonian telescope design pages and programs
Download of H. Otterstedt's Newton design program My Newton
Online diagonal sizing program,
by Mel Bartels
Gary Seronik: Sizing Up the Newtonian Secondary
Arjen te Marvelde: Vignetting in a Newton telescope
Newtonian
design planner, by Jim Fly
Dale
Keller: ATM newtonian design software
My spreadsheet for calculating secondary size and illumination of FOV (English)
My spreadsheet for calculating secondary size and illumination of FOV (Dutch)
Selfmade focusers
Marco Miglionico: 1.25in Aluminium Crayford Focuser
My first selfmade Crayford focuser
My second selfmade Crayford focuser
Bruce Holbrook:
Building a PVC focuser
Toshimi Taki: Poor Man's Crayford Focuser
Home Made Helical Crayford Focuser
Making a focuser
Jim Sapp:
An Easy to Make, Single-piece Crayford-type Focuser
Crayford focuser
Arjan te Marvelde: Crayford focuser (scroll halfway down the page)
Steve Bedair: Homemade Crayford Style Focuser
Nils Olof Carlin: Updating a telescope; the focuser
Focuser construction
Keith Lohmeyer: Red 10" Dob
Micha Altvaters Seiten: Ein Einfach-Crayford
Dave Smith's Crayford focusers (click 'Crayfords')
Pieree Desvaux's focuser (scroll down to almost end of page)
(Making) spiders/secondary supports
Vladimir Sacec: Spider diffraction and apodization
Richard Dunna: ALT-AZ secondary support for newtonians
Steve
Swayze: How to build a spider for your telescope
Dick
Suiter: Spider van thickness and diffraction
J.E.
Harvey and C. Ftaclas: Diffraction effects of telescope secondary
mirror spiders on various image-quality criteria
Arjen te Marvelde's minimalist spider design
Arjen te Marvelde's wire spider calculation spreedsheet
Yrjo Pullinen's spider design
Mike Lockwood's offset wire spider
Mark Cowan's 3-vane wire spider
Mark Cowan's wire spider, for his 14 inch trilateral telescope
Mel Bartel's wire spider
The silent observer's wire spider tensioners
Harro Treur's wire spider (with banjo string tensioners)
David Steinhauer: a wire spider for a small telescope
Jens' wire spider and magnetic secondary attachment (scroll down a little)
Equatorial platforms
Yahoogroup Equatorial Platforms (very much, very good information)
David Shouldice: A Low Profile Equatorial table (VNS platform)
Reiner Vogel's equatorial platform pages (VNS platform)
Ulli Vedder's VNS platform
Hans Aspenberg's equatorial platform (VNS platform)
David Gilbank's VNS equatorial platform
Dob-Tracker III platform (VNS platform)
Howard Banich's equatorial platforms
Fred van Gestel's equatorial platform's
Web of Dave: Equatorial platform
Birchardville Observatory: What is an Equatorial Platform?
André Heijkoop’s equatorial platform
Nils Olof Carlin: An equatorial platform for a 6" f/5 travelscope
Robert Duvall: An evolved poncet platform
Aluminium platforms
Nils Olof Carlin: Stepper motor driver circuit (mainly) for driving equatorial platforms
Don Peckham's platform
Equatorial cradle
The Hiss Drive
The McCreary Mount
Building the McCreary Mount
Tom Fangrow: A 'hiss drive' platform
Plat-forme equatoriale (a very low and lightweight platform)
Daniel Restemeier's platform (German)
Scotch mount (Barndoor tracker)
Robert
Duvall: Barndoor tracker
Brian
Rachford: A low tech barndoor drive
Jeff
deTray: Barndoor camera mount
Stephen
Tonkin: a hand-driven Scotch mount
Stephen
Tonkin: a better barndoor (a double-arm Scotch mount)
Evan Williams: a
precision double arm drive
Gary Seronik: a tracking platform for astrophotography
Steve Irvine's barndoor mount
Ulhas Deshpande: Selfbuilt Astrotracker Mk2
Stepper motors and circuits
LiniStepper
v1; Microstepping Stepper Motor Driver Kit
D.W. Jones:
Control of stepper motors
Robert
Duvall's Stepper motor drive circuit
Stepper
motor controller: another drive circuit with parts list
Astro-electronics
about stepper motors (commercial)
Nils
Olof Carlin: Stepper motor driver circuit (mainly) for driving
equatorial platforms
Binocular mounts
Rex Kindell's paralellogram bino mount
Dennis Simmons' paralellogram bino moiunt
The
Bolton group: a new binocular mount
Steven
Lee: a parallelogram binocular mounting
Jim Sapp: A
Bino-Mount Built with Comfort in mind
Florian's Binocular Viewing
Accessories: Bino-Mirror
Gary Seronik: Gary’s Easy-Go-Round Binocular Mount
Observing
Martin Maters: The deepsky visibility indicator
The Sky Quality meter
Alvin Huey's Observing guides (Arp galaxies, Abell planetaries and Hickson groups)
Damian Peach: An examination of the effects of optical aberrations, obstruction and seeing on real Planetary images
Rony de Laet: My pencil sketches
Website Wolfgang Steinicke
Website Uwe Glahn (in German)
Sterrenkunde; website van Bob Hogeveen
Jeffrey Bout: Nederlandse Deepsky dag
Digitized
Sky Survey
The Coldfield Observatory: Top 200 most beautiful Double Stars
Albert Highe's observing projects: galaxy clusters
Damian
Peach: the Pickering Seeing Scale Nice star animations!
Don McCready: The moon illusion explained
Robert Houdart's telecopic limiting magnitude calculator
Ben
Sugerman's (naked eye) limiting magnitude calculator
Estimating
Limiting Magnitude
Brian
Skiff: How dark can the nightsky get?
Brian
Skiff: Photometry of M57 field stars
Bradley
E. Schaefer: Telescopic limiting magnitudes
Nils
Olof Carlin: About Bradley E. Schaefer: Telescopic limiting Magnitudes
(1990) Nils
Olof Carlin: Another interpretation of the data from Blackwell, H R
(1946): Contrast Thresholds of the Human Eye.
Nils Olof Carlin: Estimating the limiting magnitude of binoculars
Roger N.
Clark: Visual astronomy of the nightsky
Dave Gill: Through an Eyepiece Darkly
Mel
Bartels: Visual astronomy, an investigation into the visual Optimum
Detection Magnification
José R. Torres: Prediction of visisbility software
The
night sky in the world: maps of artificial night sky brightness
Brian
Rachford: A different way of looking at globular cluster magnitudes
Brian
Rachford: A different way of looking at galaxy magnitudes
Tony
Flanders: Surface brightness
Tony
Flanders: Aperture versus Light Pollution.
The
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale
Downloadable light pollution maps for European countries
Chris Rock: Starparty - A Documentary (movie)
Interesting homepages
Astro hollyday at Stellarzac, France: 800 mm and 1000 mm telescope!
Matthijs' astronomy site
Astroforum (Dutch)
Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)
Clearskies; Victor van Wulfen's homepage
Norbert Schmidt's Astropages
Website Niels Grobben
Sterrenwacht Almere
Visual Deep Sky Sterrenkunde, in Nederland en Belgie
Sterrenwacht Ecliptica
Kiminori Ikebe: Visual Observation of Deep-Sky Objects
Homepage werkgroep
Maan en Planeten (Dutch)
Astrolab
IRIS (Belgium)
Starnights homepage (Dutch)
Steve Swayze's homepage
Mike
Lindner's homepage
Stichting De Koepel
(Dutch)
Ole's astronomy site
Paul's
Astropage
Luc
Arnolds homepage
Comets
Orbit
diagrams
Orbital
elements
Meteors
Dutch Meteor Society Website
International Meteor Organization
The moon
Patrick
Chevalley and Christian Legrand: Virtual atlas of the moon: free
software.
Digital
lunar orbiter photographic atlas of the moon
Astronomical
picture of the day index: earth's moon
The moon, by
Bill Arnett
Astronomy software and catalogs
Martin Maters: The deepsky visibility indicator
Deepskylog.be
The NGC/IC project
Skyview: the internet's
virtual telescope
USNO Flagstaff
Station Integrated Image and Catalogue Archive Service
Dan
Bruton: astronomy software
Astronomy
catalogs
Vizier service
The
STScI Digitized Sky Survey
The
Interactive NGC Catalog Online
The NGC/IC
project
NASA-IPAC:
Extragalactic database (NED)
Level 5: A
Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology
Deepsky
collections and catalogs
Atlas
of the Andromeda galaxy
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Skytools observing
software(strongly recommended)
Megastar;
skycharting program
Abbarator homepage:
excellent freeware startest simulation program! |
