Here I'm is, the Zombie Woof!

-ol' 2long

Aaaaah, it's The Flamingos.

Yeah, doo-[censored]. But sooooooooo cool.

GC

Yes! I saw Jupiter! A few weeks ago, I had a guest here who foolishly happened to mention that he was packing a telescope.

I sort of forced him to unpack his whole car and set it up out in the yard. It was the first time I have ever seen the actual thing.

He showed us a global cluster and an open cluster and what was that ET/Owl thing...

(Bethany is now naming off Jupiters moons for our entertainment)

Oh, man. 2long... the '88 band did a version of Zombie Woof that blows the mind.

I heard the later bands before I heard the old stuff.

Overnite Sensation is a desert island record. The Captain Beefheart record, the live one, kills. The first two Mothers records are impossibly good. It's a freakin' goldmine, his catalog.

GC

Mmmmm. . . not bad, Gray. I could like that. Just none of that bee-bop, doo-[censored] 50's stuff, please. I cannot stomach it.

what else you got, Shul?

C'mon, 2! Give us something! Can you make an anonymous album sometime?

Got any more Arrogant [censored] Ale? I think I wanna try some. I am out of Johnnie Walker Black tonight. I had to use the last of it to put down one of my fish. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Yes, go ahead and laugh. I am laughing thinking about it, LOLOLOL!

slh

2long... I started building a Dobson 12" long, long ago and never finished. Should I? I think a 12" Newtonian is a little ridiculous now. I couldn't take it anywhere! Maybe a 6" would make more sense. It would be fun to have around, even though I'm no astronomer.

GC

You guys still here?

'Here I'm is, the Zombie Woof!'

I am having a flashback. Yellow Dog T-shirt/ bare feet/hookah pipe...

'I done ran into my baby
and fin'lly found my old blue jean.
I done ran into my baby
and fin'lly found my old blue jean.
Well, I could tell that they was mine
from the oil and the gasoline.

If I ever get back my blue jean,
Lord, how happy could one man be.
If I ever get back my blue jean,
Lord, how happy could one man be.
'Cause if I get back those blue jean
you know, my baby be bringin' 'em home to me

2Long and GC and other optical guys,

I've got a mirror for an 8" S-C with a very short focal length. (Military R&D surplus my Dad scarfed years ago). I've got the tube too (with a ring in it for the secondary), but no secondary and no corrector plate. I tried to figure out what the thing is, and it looked parabolic to my very ignorant eyes - using an old (30's, 40's?) "Scientific American, build your own scope" book for reference. In that case it doesn't need a corrector plate, right? Also it seems to be f1.5, although it is marked f2.5 on the back - which I'm guessing is why it was thrown out.

Is there any hope to get a secondary for it?

-AD

GC:

I've built a few scopes of my own. I've got an 8" f/9 mirror I started 33 years ago and never finished!

I built an 8" f/6 in 1981 that you could see here, until I removed this link:

I've also built a 6" f/10 refractor, using an old Jaegers lens (about 45 years old). and a 12.5" Cassegrain for planets.

These days, though, I'm using a "store bought" 9.25" SCT, because it'll fit in my attic observatory!

AD: Must have been the articles about the lensless schmidt camera you're referring 2. I've never seen one.

-ol' 2long

Yuh huh. Now and then.

Wazup AD?

Gadzooks, my internet connection keeps dropping out for several minutes at a time (I can tell, because I've got 3 computers connected at the same time!).

nu nu nu nu nu nu...

-ol' 2long

2long... cooooool.

Do people ever tell you the only thing that's changed about your appearance is the color of your hair?

Where did AD go?

GC

Yep.

My dad got a good laugh when my beard started 2rning gray about 40.

His wasn't gray until he was about 65 or 70 - but then my mom wouldn't let him grow one until then (she never liked it even then), so I have no idea when it would've 2rned.

In a few years, I'll just have 2 bleach my hair 2 be Santa over Christmas!

-ol' 2long

Happening?

What's that?

I'm just .... sitting here when I should be sleeping.

It's 1:30am again.

2Long, I fiddled with that mirror about 10 years ago and had this old book on how to build a scope - which was just a rebound version of some old Scientific American articles as I recall. I tried to figure out what it was - whether spherical or parabolic or what - and focal length. Could be I got it wrong. From what I read, if it was casagrain, it should have been a spherical primary - but it looked parabolic using some test that I got out of the book - featureing a slit between two razor-blades and a point light source and ... I don't remember. Ignorant, I am, about this stuff.

So, it's an 8 inch mirror with a 2" hole in it - with a nice tube to mount it in - but no secondary. I understood that the secondary needs to be an "outy" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> etc. Oh, now I'm embarrassed by my ignorance.

-AD

2Long, in '81, you looked like my high school art teacher.

I never took art, but that's what he looked like - you!

-AD

AD:

If it's parabolic, it could be a true cassegrain (which has a parabolic primary and hyperbolic secondary (I think)). I didn't grind my mirrors for my Cass, I bought them from a great optician friend I've known for a long time.

So, if it's a classical cass, all you'd need would be 2 have someone make a 2ndary for it (which might not be easy or cheap, mind you). If it's a Schmidt Cass (not likely if it's that old), you're looking at needing a 2ndary AND a corrector, which would likely make it not worthwhile.

You could advertise it on astromart.com classifieds. I bought my 9.25" through one of those ads.

-ol' 2long

Thanks, 2Long,

Probably I should just put it up on E*bay or whereever and be rid of it. But it would sure help to be able to describe it accurately.

My Dad worked in a place I called the "death ray group". I don't know what they really did, but they were inside a secure area which was inside another secure area - with guards at the gate house at each fence. Dad was a pack-rat and had several secret storage rooms out there that he packed with stuff that was supposed to be thrown away. People knew he had that, and if they needed something of the kind he usually kept, they would ask him. Sometimes he brought things home - and that's where this apparently came from. I think it was ordered custom-made and was ground to the wrong focal lenght, so they just threw it away.

-AD

AD:

I just realized you were referring 2 the article when you said 30's or 40's.

Okay, thinking about this some, it must have been a Cass of some sort, or it wouldn't have a perforated primary (schmidt cameras don't, as they weren't made 2 look through). Also, if the f/ratio is that short, it most likely was a Schmidt Cass primary. And the only company that made those commercially (possibly also for the military - most telescope makers did a bit of that during the 50's and 60's) before 1982 or so was Celestron. What color is the tube? If it's orange, it's almost certainly a mid-70's to mid 80's Celestron. If it's baby blue, it's an early Celestron - from the late 60's or early 70's.

Criterion (Baush and Lomb) made one for a while, but the ones I've seen are junk optically and mechanically. And Meade Instruments started making them in about 1982, with a dark blue tube.

-ol' 2long

The tube is military grey.
It was custom made for an Army R&D project.

I'm guessing it was made in the 80's - in the last years of Dad's employment.
His group, I think was on some kind of SDI R&D assignment. It was probably intended to be a spotting scope for use on a test range. That's my best guess.

-AD