Sky & Telescope - November 2023 - 72

ASTRONOMER'S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
The Darkness Before the Dawn
Frustration is part of the process.
To make the ball, I coated a kids' rubber ball
in fiberglass. That was the hard way! It required
hours and hours of sanding and patching to
make it smooth and spherical.
another part, and I had to back up two
or three steps to rebuild it.
But I finally put it all together and
took it out for first light. I remember
packing it into the car and driving it
over to the reservoir, the big, concretetopped
water tank that my club uses for
our star parties. I was so excited!
I set it up and started observing with
IN THIS COLUMN I normally try to
show people how easy and rewarding
it can be to build your own astronomy
equipment. In my very first column
(S&T: June 2016, p. 68), I stressed
how simple and fun it can be, and I've
mostly stuck to that mantra ever since.
However, there's a dirty little secret
lurking between the lines: Setbacks and
frustration are also part of the process.
And the more ambitious the project, the
more frustrating it can be.
With that in mind, I want to tell you
about my first telescope-making project.
My first scope build was my 10-inch
trackball. That's right: Rather than
learn on something straightforward and
simple, I decided to build a ball scope
and make it track. There were no models
to work from, no plans on the Stellafane
website, nothing. I had to make up the
whole thing myself, and it often seemed
that I took two steps backward for every
step forward. There were many times
when I made a mistake that ruined
72 NOVEMBER 2023 * SKY & TELESCOPE
it . . . and ran into one problem after
another. I had used car wax on the ball,
but that stuck like glue, except when
it didn't, so the scope lurched around
like a drunk. It actually creaked when I
moved it. The balance was way off, so it
wouldn't stay on target, and it wouldn't
track except when it was pointed
straight up (and did so poorly). The
motor sounded like a B-52 taking off.
The mount was wobbly as a Weeble. And
at one point I tripped over one of the
legs and scooted it sideways, somehow
busting a couple square inches of one of
the plywood plies completely off the leg.
I was so disgusted with the whole works
that I didn't even pick up the busted-off
piece. I just hauled the scope back to
the car and threw it in, not caring how
badly I banged it up because I was planning
to throw the whole $#@! thing
away when I got home anyway.
I sat there in the car, fuming and
close to tears at the same time, and one
simple thought made it through the fog
of emotion: " You're littering. " By leaving
the broken-off part out there on the
reservoir deck, I was littering. So I went
back and retrieved it. Drove home and
unloaded the scope into the garage and
went upstairs to bed. Didn't sleep much.
But over the course of the night, the
chemicals in my bloodstream equilibrated
again. I woke up in the morning
feeling disappointed but no longer angry.
I went out to the garage and looked at
the mount. The damage was superficial; I
could glue the plywood top layer back on,
and the repair would hardly be visible. I
could try a different wax. I could isolate
the motor with rubber grommets. I could
brace the wobbly legs. I started thinking
of all the things I could do to make the
scope work better, and slowly I regained
my interest in the project.
It took weeks of tinkering to make
it work. There were several days when
I was convinced the whole design was
lousy. Nobody else had done one of
pLeft: The mount's original incarnation had the idler bearings angled wrong, wobbly legs, and a
motor that sucked juice like a short circuit and sounded like a bomber taking off. Right: Braces
between the legs and the platform stiffened up the mount, and a smaller motor solved the battery
and noise problem. Note the angled idler bearings. This mount tracks like a dream!
ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Sky & Telescope - November 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - November 2023