Building the Edmund Scientific 6″ reflector

Building the Edmund Scientific 6″ reflector

I still have this scope!

It’s hard for even me to believe that as a child I built a 6″ Newtonian Telescope somewhere around 1971. Not just assembling the parts, but grinding and polishing the mirror. And not just polishing the mirror, but testing the curvature to create a good parabolic curve meant also building the foucault tester and learning how to use it. 

As a young teenager I purchased an Olympus OM-1 35mm camera with the express intent to use it with my telescope. I had even joined the Seattle Astronomical Society and attended a few meetings, but the astrophotography bug would not take hold for many years.