From: "Mel Bartels" 
To: 
Reply-To: "Mel Bartels" 


My experience here on the ATM list and in person at star parties and club
gatherings is that telescope makers readily acknowledge the work of others.
Once you've built a telescope, you understand the effort and rewards
involved, and greatly appreciate the work of others.

Any delitorious comments are along the lines of friendly ribbing that we do
with people we trust and whom we call friends.

I think Chuck Dethloff is being too modest.  He scopes have impressive
innovations including his fan mounted an inch above the primary on thin
wire that blows air off the mirror's face.  In addition, he himself has
ventured far from the modern base design as presented in Kreige's book with
his precision travel scopes.

I build telescopes because it is rewarding.  I like the challenge of the
design and I like observing with them and connecting to the cosmos.  I like
minimalist designs because they force me to confront and solve engineering
problems - no sliding by by tossing in oddles of margins of safety.  The
result besides the personal satisfaction of the design and construction is
more aperture for the transport effort.

I want to dispell this idea that occasionally pops up along the lines of,
"Gee, you're telling me that MY 18 point mirror flotation system was
designed on wrong principles, so my scope suddenly has become
worthless". However a scope performed yesterday, it will continue to
perform tomorrow. However carefully a scope was constructed yesterday, it
will continue to display careful construction in the future.

How many of us admire the Palomar 200 inch any less because today it
represents an obsolete design?

Because we think we have more efficient designs, and more to the point,
understand better how to support glass, does not mean that scopes built
with previous best designs are somehow less worthy now.  Instead, they are
to be admired for what they are: working monuments to an amateur's
inspiration and sweat.

Telescopes and their craftmanship are timeless.  Historical telescopes
built by thinkers long dead talk to us today; we hear their voices as we
gaze up and down the instrument, and as night falls, turn the captured star
light to our eyes.

Mel Bartels

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