ASTRONOMYTECHNOLOGY TODAYYour Complete Guide to Astronomical Equipment

OZARK HILLS OBSERVATORY • STAR SHOOTER MOBILE OBSERVATORYBUILDING A FINDER/RICH-FIELD SCOPE • W0 ZENITHSTAR 110 TRIPLET APO

Volume 1 • Issue 3August 2007 $4.00 US

TOMOSYPOWSKI50 Years ofViewing and Stillan EquipmentJunkie

The night sky has been my steady com-panion for over five decades – ever since, atthe age of 12, I had the urge to look up atthe stars from my boyhood home inMilwaukee. Despite my age, I quickly grad-uated from learning the constellations andbright star names to building telescopes tolook deeper into the night.

Above I am pointing out to my brother,Ed (with glasses), how to sight through thefinder of my newly made 3-inch f/10 reflec-tor. I was 14, and this was 1955. The scopeis mounted in an alt/az style with pipes forshafts, running in wooden bearings.

Designing and building telescopes,mounts and clock drives became as much anobsession as actually using them. I alsoenjoyed poring through ads in Sky &

Telescope. Of course, the offerings then (thiswas the late ’50s) were pretty meager –mostly war surplus eyepieces off of tanksand such. Still, I earned my “cred” as anequipment junkie very early, haunting hard-ware stores and junkyards, looking for possi-ble telescope parts.

The Dobsonian Revolutionand Tracking

The Dobsonian revolution in the early’80s really got my juices flowing. I was 40then living in the country under dark skies.The promise of BIG aperture on an easy-tobuild mount was irresistible. Soon I had a16-inch Dob up and running.This was a bigleap forward from the 10-inch fork mount-ed scope I had been using. The 16-inch was

easier to set up than the 10-inch and theviews were twice as bright. Wow!

But there was a downside. While my10-inch home-built fork mount had a serv-iceable drive on it, the 16-inch was strictly a“push and view” scope. Or so it seemed atfirst. It turned out that the Dob revolutionspawned other developments, the most sig-nificant for me being the invention of theequatorial table by the Frenchman, AndrePoncet. That technology quickly evolvedwith the refinements that inventors, includ-ing Alan Gee and Georges d’Autume, addedto Poncet’s original ideas. I jumped right inand in 1984 converted the ground board ofmy 16-inch Dob into a tracking platform.Next I converted my 10-inch into a Dobwith its own platform.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 25

By Tom Osypowski

50 Years of Viewingand Still anEquipment

Junkie

From Aluminum EquatorialPlatforms to Aluminum Dobs

People at star parties began to takenotice – a Dob that could track was quite anovelty at the time and they were asking meto make them one of those “platformthingies” for their own scopes. This was thestart of my present astronomy manufactur-ing business, Equatorial Platforms.

We have built over 500 platforms in thelast 20 years for scopes from 6-inch to36-inch. They have been shipped toastronomers all over the world. It’s still agreat feeling, shipping out a platform andknowing how much its use is going toenhance the viewing pleasure of its newowner.

My platform designs, and the tech-niques for making them, have evolved overthe decades, with the addition, for instance,

of the dual-axis drive and extended trackingrun times. No development was more sig-nificant, however, than the production ofmy first metal platform. Wanting to exploitthe stability and rigidity of metal, I had beenthinking about such a step for years, butcould never quite come up with a viabledesign. At first I was looking at replacing the

sheets of plywood in my wooden platformswith sheets of metal. But this would be bothexpensive in materials and prohibitive inweight.

I experimented with lightweight alu-minum tubing in square and rectangularshapes and hit upon the idea of just makinga framework of welded tubing for a nice

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This is my first really good scope, a 6-inchf/10 on a classic pipe mounting. I workedall of one summer on the mirror, but nevercould bring it to a good finish, so a friendof mine put an excellent figure on it. Iused the scope a lot for observing doublestars. I was 15 years old when I finishedit (about 1956).

Now we jump to 1981, when I completedthis 10-inch f/6 at the age of 40. I workeda lot on this scope and its fork mount,trying to get a decent drive hookup to it.The hand control I built for it had about 10buttons and a number of switches fordifferent slew speeds, automatic focusand coffee maker operation.

After the 10-inch scope was finished, Imoved up to a 16-inch Dob in 1983. Whenplatform technology was invented, Iimmediately ran with the ideas being pub-lished and converted the groundboard ofthis Dob into my very first platform. Withsome tweaking, it worked very well, and Iused it for a number of years before mak-ing new and improved platforms for thescope. This is the scope that took a num-ber of fine photos for me.

solid structure. The framework could carrythe Teflon pads needed for the rocker of theDob. The first platform made using thesematerials and techniques was a resoundingsuccess. In fact, it turned out so well that thebasic design and appearance has notchanged much over the years. Over 150 ofour aluminum platforms are now in service.The advantages of these all-metal platformsare their light weight, durability and stiffnessover their wooden counterparts, especially inthe larger sizes.

The aluminum platforms led to anoth-er development: I had always wanted tobuild and market complete telescopes, aswell as Equatorial Platforms, but there werealready many manufacturers making verynice wooden Dobs. No need for anothercontender in that fray, I figured.

Then I found out that one could getrectangular aluminum tubing in sizes like 1-inch by 4-inch and 1.5-inch by 6-inch. Thatopened up a whole new arena of possibili-ties. How about using this tubing to fabri-cate low-profile and very stiff rocker boxes

and mirror boxes? After more experimenta-tion, I decided to offer a line of large alu-minum telescopes to complement the metalplatforms.

Go-To DrivesWhile that is a dynamite combination,

the introduction of viable alt-az drives wasstarting to revolutionize large Dob tracking.Could such a drive be married with my alu-minum telescopes? I didn’t want to just dosome kind of compromised “retrofit.” Mygoal was to build a telescope system from theground up that was designed around an alt-az drive, one that would offer a state-of-the-art go-to function and still not give up theeasy hand movements of the traditionalDob.

This search ended at the Oregon StarParty a few years ago, where I saw a revolu-tionary telescope design and drive systemthat had been developed by Dan Gray ofSidereal Technologies.

Dan had brought a new 28-inch scopethat immediately caught my eye (and many

other eyes, too!). To me, it just looked like ithad been done RIGHT. The altitude andazimuth motions of his scope were innova-tively designed to accept his new alt-az drivesystem. His subsequent introduction of slipclutches for both axes sealed the deal for me.

Here’s what I was looking for: a go-toscope that could be moved at will by handwithout having to release any clutches, andwithout danger of losing positioningaccuracy. I integrated Dan’s ideas and hisexcellent servo motor drive system into aline of all aluminum-telescopes: theSpica-Eyes SlipstreamTelescope with Go-ToDrive.

Super Fast OpticsFortunately, my activities coincided

with the introduction of large aperture lowf/ratio mirrors by master opticians like myfriends, Steve Kennedy and JohnLightholder. Here’s the deal: big telescopesare fun to use, but few people like the bigladders that usually go along with them.Well, Steve Kennedy of Kennedy Optics

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 27

50 YEARS OF VIEWING

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changed all of that when he started makinglarge mirrors – 24-inch to 32-inch – withsub f/4 ratios. This opened up the possibili-ty of big SHORT telescopes. For instance,my personal scope is a 24-inch on a plat-form with an f/3.75 Kennedy mirror. It’s areal pleasure to use an instrument of thatsize, and yet be standing on the ground a lotof the time, with never more than 2 or 3steps up a ladder. Of course, traditionalistsimmediately jumped in with objections:“You just can’t make a really good mirrorwith that short an f/ratio. And even if youcould, the coma will kill you. And thenthere is the critical mirror alignment thatwould be needed.” Stuff like that.

It turned out that Steve Kennedy couldmake very good mirrors with f/ratios like3.75 and 3.6. Steve had spent 10 years withCelestron as their master optician andtherefore had a great background producingcommercial optics. That coupled with a lotof innate talent and sheer doggedness allowhim to produce consistently excellent shortf/ratio parabolic mirrors.

But what about the coma issue and thecritical alignment issue with such short mir-rors? First, the coma was really not a prob-lem, I found out. It only crops up signifi-cantly with the longer focal length eyepiecesand their wider fields. The simple use of acoma corrector, like Tele Vue’s Paracorr,tames coma to acceptable levels, and athigher powers, I find that the Paracorr is notneeded. For instance, with my 24-inchf/3.75 mirror I use a Paracorr with a 26-mmNagler. This combination gives me about100X with a true field of over 3/4 degree. Ican put a star in the center of the field, slewit to the edge with the remote control, andsee virtually no change in its sharpness.What’s not to like? I also use the Paracorrwith a 17-mm Nagler, but for any higherpowers, it is just not needed in my experi-ence.

Finally, I have found the alignmentissue also to be a non-problem. There areplenty of collimating tools on the marketthat make critical alignment a cinch toachieve, even with ultra short f/ratios. And

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Pictured Left: 28-inch f/3.66SpicaEyes SlipstreamTelescope with Go-To-Drive

Pictured Below: Dual-axisAluminum Platform

Pictured Above: 15-inch Dual-axisEquatorial Platform with ObsessionTelescope

Pictured Right: 16-inch f/4 SpicaEyesTelescope on an Equatorial Platform

if you have a stiff scope, that alignment willbe maintained with little difficulty.

Evolution of Viewing Habits:Binoviewers andAstrophotography

Just as with equipment, viewing habitshave gone through a lot of interestingchanges over the years. Back in the late1950s a 12-inch scope was a huge instru-ment. And lucky me – at the age of fourteenI had access to such a scope at the observa-tory of theMilwaukee Astronomical Society.It was a behemoth, a 12-inch f/8 with arolled steel tube, heavy German Equatorialmount, sitting in a dome two stories up ona 10-ton concrete pier. You could pound onthe tube with your fist and barely shake theimage.

I spent many a fine night with this tel-escope, first just viewing and getting toknow my way around the Messier list, thentaking up photography. A friend and I gotthe bug to compile a northern sky photo-graphic star atlas. We constructed a cameraaround a 7-inch fl.-f/2.5 surplus lens.Stopping the lens down to f/4 allowed it tocover a 4-inch by 5-inch glass plate. We pig-gybacked the camera on the monster 12-inch scope, and used that scope as a guiderfor the camera. Each exposure was about 30minutes, and was hand guided with acrosshair eyepiece in the main scope. I didall the darkroom work, developing the glassplates and making 8-inch by 10-inch printsfor our atlas. Everything was going welluntil someone stole the camera abouthalfway through the project.

My next foray into astrophotographyinvolved taking large-scale photos of themoon and Jupiter using eyepiece projection.This was a lot of fun, and resulted in an arti-cle in Sky & Telescope (Jan. 1965) entitled,“High Resolution Photography.”

After the publication of that paper,other life adventures kicked in and I putastrophotography aside for many years. Theneed to see if the Equatorial Platforms I wasnow making were good enough to do imag-ing rekindled an interest. Turned out they

were, and the results can be seen on theEquatorial Platforms Web site. A few exam-ples are also included with this article. Forthe images of M42 I used a separate guide-scope and hand guided for about 8 minutes.Others have used our Platforms with auto-guiders for exposures up to 60 minutes at atime. And, for those who don’t want toguide at all, modern CCD cameras allowstacking many shorter exposures of 15-30seconds, and integrating them into wonder-ful images. Also, these same short exposuretimes are all that are needed to exploit awhole new generation of super sensitivevideo cameras that are revolutionizing view-

ing and imaging. More about that later.If truth be told, despite various

attempts at astrophotography, visual viewinghas always been my primary observing pas-sion. The advent of modern well-corrected,wide-field eyepieces has really opened upthat arena. In my early astronomy days, aquality Kellner or war surplus Erfle was apremium eyepiece. Now look at what wecan get from so many vendors!

Binoviewers have also come of age,especially with the introduction of theDenkmeier units, with that oh-so-clever“Power Switch” – three different powers atthe flick of a lever, with no need to change

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50 YEARS OF VIEWING

eyepieces. That is one lovely accessory, and Ienjoy using mine. When the seeing is goodand I want some detailed views of theMoon, Jupiter or Saturn, out come thebinoviewers. I flat out see more using themon solar system objects. The views of deepsky objects, especially with a larger scope, arealso terrific through a good binoviewer. ButI feel there is some loss, and so tend to use asingle eyepiece if I want to coax out the sub-tlest and faintest details in a galaxy or nebu-la. Bright planetaries might be the exceptionhere. They too, like the planets themselves,seem to look best in the binoviewer at highpower.

A Substitute for ApertureLike many other observers, I have been

afflicted over the years with aperture fever. Ithas always brought me deep pleasure toacquire a larger telescope and review all ofmy favorite objects and get to see them in anew light; or rather, with more light. It’salways fun to see new detail in an object thatyou have already looked at dozens of times

through smaller telescopes.Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that

I am never going to own a larger scope thanmy 24-inch. Sure, I have manufactured anumber of 28-inch and 30-inch scopes forcustomers, but making those scopes helpedme see that I could never effectively use one.They were just two big and bulky for me tohaul around to dark sky sites. For a whilethere, the “equipment junkie” side of mewas forced to concede it had reached a wall,and the “viewer” side of me just had toaccept that.

Then some friends and customers start-ed talking up a new camera gadget thatoffered almost live views of deep sky objectsthat compared to eyepiece views throughscopes 4 or 5 times larger. This new instru-ment was a small video camera called theMallinCam, manufactured by Buck Mallinin Canada. Turns out this was not an off-the-shelf camcorder or webcam that hasbeen adapted for astronomy use, but rather,a very carefully designed astronomical CCDimaging device capable of recording bothhigh light level objects like the Moon andbright planets and also the much fainterlight of deep sky objects. It has a built-inshutter with speeds as short as 1/12,000 sec,and as long as 56 seconds. The images thatare recorded by this camera, whatever theshutter speed, can be sent directly to a screenfor an almost “live,” highly detailed, colorview of whatever you are focused on; a view,so it was said, that would rival that throughthe eyepiece of a much larger scope.

Was this a way to assuage my aperturefever without a 4-foot mirror and a 14-footladder? The only way to find out was to tryone of these new cameras so I contacted JackHuerkamp, who is the U.S. dealer for theMallinCam, and within a week the camerawas on my scope sending photons to mylaptop. Because the MallinCam itself, andthe laptop video viewing accessory that I hadbought, have a lot of possible image adjust-ments, it took a bit of fiddling to get it allright. But once I got the hang of it:“OH…MY…” There on the screen was anextremely real looking color image of M51,

replete with bluish spiral arms, dark lanes inthe arms, the bridge with its dark lanes, asprinkling of pinkish HII regions, and abright core with interesting nodules aroundit. The image truly looked like a live view ofthe galaxy through, say, an 80-inch or a 100-inch telescope.

I could choose integration times of 7,14, 28, or 56 seconds. The image on thescreen would then be updated at thosetimes. For my view of M51, the 7-secondintegration time proved to be quite satisfy-ing, showing all the detail described above. Iwas truly stunned. Every 7 seconds theimage on the screen was refreshed with anew one. I could watch them pop up and seethe differences as the seeing, wind, or track-ing affected them. Then I made anotherexciting discovery: the add-on video cardthat I was using with my laptop (AVerTVExpress MCE) had an image capture fea-ture. Whenever an exceptionally clear inte-gration image came up on the screen, Icould instantly save it to my hard drive.Wow, color CCD imaging made easy!

Other galaxies were just as spectacularin appearance on the screen. Edge-on galax-ies like 4565 and 6855, 4651 and M104were spread across the screen in great detail.The Owl Nebula, M97, showed up as amottled bluish-green disc with obvious“eyes” and three stars in the nebula. The jetfrom the black hole inM87 was totally obvi-ous, and even looked bluish in color.

What about solar system targets? Well,with the proper settings, views of the moonand Saturn were excellent. With theseobjects, the feeling of actually observing isenhanced, since the integration times are onthe order of 1/500 second. This means real-time viewing, showing seeing effects andwind movement. It is very much like look-ing through the eyepiece.

The Dual-axis Platform I use with my24-inch scope and theMallinCam has a nicetwo-speed slew in both RA and DEC. Itwould be a pain to have to go over to thescope and try and make the subtle adjust-ments necessary by shoving the tube around.But with the little cordless remote control

30 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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Our piers offersuperior rigidity tovirtually cancel out anyaccidental vibration. Wemanufacture piers forMeade and Celestrontelescopes, MittyEvolution wedges,Paramount ME andLosmandy mounts.We can also customfabricate your pier onour state of the artlaser machines.

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Pictured Top: M42 taken with a 16-inch f/5 Dob on a Dual-AxisEquatorial Platform. 9 minute expo-sure on 1000 ASA film. Hand guidedwith a separate guidescope taken byTom.

Pictured Right: M82 from a 7-secondexposure with a MallinCam HyperColor camera with a 24-inch f/3.75SpicaEyes Telescope on a Dual-AxisEquatorial Platform taken by Tom.

Pictured Below: Horsehead Nebulataken with a 20-inch Obsession on aDual-Axis Equatorial Platform. Thisis a combination of 36 60-secondautoguided exposures by GlennSchaeffer.

50 YEARS OF VIEWING

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 31

button fob, I can sit in my chair by thelaptop and easily center the objects on thescreen, or scan up and down the lunarterminator. The tracking of the platform isaccurate and gives consistently good imageswith integration times of 7, 14, and 28seconds. Some guiding would be of advan-tage with longer integration times. So far,though, the 7-second and 14-second timesare more than enough for the brighter galax-ies and nebulae.

This new type of observing has made iteven more fun to get out under the stars.The skies at my home viewing site havebeen diminished over the years by creepinglight pollution (sound familiar?) and eventhe views through a 24-inch had beengetting more and more washed out. Butviewing with the MallinCam hasrevitalized the night sky for me, and it is alsoproving to be an amazing teaching toolwhen I throw little star gatherings forneighbors and friends. Everyone who istreated to these images is truly stunnedand amazed by the views this little cameraoffers.

Well, that's the account (the shortversion) of my astronomical journey: manyyears of viewing and amateur telescopemaking, culminating in a professional careerdesigning and manufacturing EquatorialPlatforms and large Aluminum Telescopes.At 65, I am still going strong, still enjoyingthe views, and still making the equipment.

Best regards and clear dark skies toall!

www.equatorialplatforms.com

www.siderealtechnology.com

www.mallincam.tripod.com

www.waningmoonii.com

www.kennedy-optics.com

www.lightholderoptics.com

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