Blood Snot and Tears

No blood letting yet.

It was bloody cold in my shop today, but I got out there anyway. My nose was running and I dripped a little on the wood which swelled up. Yeah, I know... TMI. I have to get a heater out there that doesn't create CO and poison the air.

I have had some really bad back problems lately and have been going to a physical therapist and its really helping. But I was standing too long on the concrete floor of my shed I guess and now I can hardly move. There's the tears.

Despite this, Susan and I are going up to Phoenix and Dragon bookstore in a few minutes and then go on up to Mehan's Irish Pub up on Hammond Drive in Roswell to see our favorite band Emerald Rose play there tonight.

And as usual here are the photo's of what I am doing. This is the box that surrounds the mirror cell and mirror. Its just taped together with masking tape at this point as a dry fit, but really I couldn't stand it anymore out there and came back into the house early.

I can honestly say I have begun making the telescope

Here are some more shots about what I have been doing lately with my telescope. Basically, I've decided to make the octagonal box that the mirror goes in first, and build everything else that goes around it based on that.

This is the mirror cell on the bottom of what will be the octagonal box that the mirror will sit in. I've tried to show here in these pictures how the cell is very adjustable from around 6 degrees all around the center op[tical axis.

In this second shot it shows how much this cell can be adjusted. It would never get that far in reality, but its pretty flexible.

Here, I have trued all the adjustment screws up so that you can see it as it will eventually rest. This is closer to reality. Note the allen wrench on the left adjustment bolt.

Isometric view of it. The adjustment screws are held fast to the board with brass threaded inserts. The ones I found have a fairly fine thread that matched the plys in the baltic birch.

This final shot is a cut-away drawing of what it will look like when finished. the blue transparent thing is the mirror, and beneath it is the cell. Both are surrounded by the octagonal mirror box.