Shark Scope...Coke Bottle Binos...Mini Dob...Like I Said, Nonsense

The tube is made of spiral wrap paper also known as Sonotube or concrete form tubing. I added two internal “ribs” made of 1/8 inch by 3/4 inch aluminum strips which anchor the dorsal fin/handle and the altitude bearings. Attaching the handle and bearings to an internal frame will make it more difficult to adjust the balance than if I used a cradle, so if I ever add more weight to the front end, such as a bigger finder, I may have to compensate by adding a bigger tail fin. Or more of them.

I mixed some sand into the paint used on the outside of the tube to hide some defects in the tube, and to give it a shark skin like texture. Because of this some folks have noted that its not as "cuddly" as the cow scope. Can't please everyone.

I ground and polished the mirror at the Mirror Lab of the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club in 2014. I used a thin (3/4 inch) eight inch diameter plate glass disk and experienced no unexpected problems due to the glass (plate instead of borosilicate) or it's thickness (thin vs full thickness). I did most of the work on the scope in February 2016. Final assemble and first light took place on 3/3/2016 during the OBS Star Party. First light nearly became first bite due to a minor balancing issue, but adding some extra jam nuts on the focuser mounting screws added the needed weight on the front end.

Coke Bottle Binos

A few years ago I saw a video in which

someone cut the bottom out of a plastic two liter soda bottle and fitted a magnifying glass and an eye loupe to make a rudimentary telescope. I though if I used a glass bottle and a real lens and eyepiece it would actually work as a telescope. I ended up cutting the bottoms out of two coke bottles and gluing 52mm by 190mm lenses from Surplus Shed, and inexpensive 17.5mm telescope eyepieces to make a pair of low cost and hopefully comical binoculars.

To attach the eyepieces I glued an empty filter cell to each bottle neck and the eyepieces screw onto the cells using the built in filter threads.

3 inch f/6 Dobsonian

While some find this scope amusing it actually did not start out as a joke. When I first started grinding the mirror for my 14 inch scope I planed to make it as a Dobsonian with the usual eight truss tubes. I had a 3 inch mirror that I got from Surplus Shed a few years before so I made this scope partly to play around with the design, but also because it was easier to show friends and family a model than to try to explain what I was working on. By the time I finished the 14 inch mirror I decided to go with the three tube design.

Every 3 or 4 years or so I bring it to a star party or other event and have some fun with it.