Goodbye mars! (Zoom in!)
Taken using my 3D printed telescope, with a crowd of friends invited to watch the occultation of mars by the moon! The phone I was taking photos on ran out of battery, so I hastily threw a friend's iphone into the holder just in time to capture these.
[#]Astrodon #photography #astronomy
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of course a project is never truly finished, and now I still need to:
- actually I should probably reprint the whole telescope out of PETG (it's PLA now) so it doesn't melt in summer heat
- crossbar on the bottom?
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8" telescope: COMPLETE!!
It has literally taken all year, but my second telescope ever is done! It's made of 3D printed parts, metal tubes, nuts and bolts, and a mirror I hand-polished over the course of 8 months!
[#]diy #astronomy #Astrodon
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Mirror grinding with the newly refurbished tool is going extremely well! After two hours I ran out of 30 micron aluminum oxide grit and moved on to 12 micron. (You can move on when you've eliminated pits from the previous bigger grit size, but since previously I was at 5 micron, I didn't have any pits and could move on whenever I wanted, but I also wanted to grind the tool as smooth as possible).
It took only an hour and a half for the 12 micron grit to eliminate all the pits from 30 micron. Last time it took over 3 hours! Wow.
Now I'm back to 5 micron, the last grit size of fine grinding. Last time I was here, I got scratches. Here's hoping a few more hours of work with my refurbished tool will let me finally finish fine grinding. The picture shows how much of the tool is texture-free now and making good contact.
Oh and all these hours of grinding have moved my focal length from 37 inches to 39.5 inches, making this mirror a 12" f/3.3. Anything below f/3 is incredibly hard to parabolize, so this will make it easier for myself. This telescope is going to have such bright views.
[#]diy #telescopemaking
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Another tragedy! As I move to 12 and then 5 micron aluminum oxide grits, the final stages of fine grinding, scratches are showing up. I keep losing tiles from my tile tool, too. A scratch means some particle bigger than the current abrasive size is being introduced - maybe grit from earlier stages of grinding was trapped in between narrow gaps gaps in my tool's tiles? I probably have to go back to a coarser grit to get it out. Sighhhh
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My 8" mirror that I polished by hand is officially a mirror! The person with a vacuum chamber, who I gave my mirror to two months ago, finally aluminized my mirror and sent me a picture! It's shiny and reflective like a mirror should be!
Now it just has to survive being shipped back...
[#]diy #telescopemaking #Astrodon
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Good news I sent him an email and the aluminizer says he'll do it today, which happens to be the last possible day it could possibly be "next week" from one week ago
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Good news the person who I shipped my mirror to for aluminizing says he'll do it next week, which is great because he said he'd do it next week three weeks ago
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Partialest of partial lunar eclipses
[#]astronomy #Astrodon
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[#]HeyCohost you might recognize me from chosting about building 3D printed telescopes and math! It really sucks seeing cohost go but hopefully I can stay in touch with all you cool people on there
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Today in telescope making: tax law
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The planets... There's two of them
Taken using my cell phone through my 3D printed 4.5" telescope, not processed yet
[#]diy #astrophotography #Astrodon
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Ew, this building is infected by a parasitic worm
[#]photography
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Passed by a door to a building that no longer exists
[#]photography
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Wug real!
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I saw the #aurora ! It looked like light pollution at first, and I only realized what it was when I noticed the underwhelming "clouds" were in a different place after ten seconds. An hour later they had slight tints of red and green and distinct ray-like shapes! Very cool. Phone camera picked up way more color and detail than I could see by eye #photography #auroraborealis
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I was lured by a giant floating ring into an underground labyrinth but at least it's full of very pretty liminal spaces
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WOOOOO THAT WAS COOL
MORE PHOTOS TO COME
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Secondary mirror: glued into place!
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Telescope making update: before I do more mirror grinding I'm going to just put it in the telescope and see what the stars look like with a slightly misground mirror
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