Telescope-Related Publications and Presentations

Here's a list of articles I have written and presentations I have given on topics related to telescope making and mirror making.
The author/presenter is me, unless otherwise noted.



"Fast Optics", presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party, Wed., Sept. 16, 2009.
    Presentation about the advantages and disadvantages of fast Newtonian telescope optics, and some of the stories behind how I came to make such large, fast mirrors.


"Amateur Telescope Making - A Survey of the Craft", presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party, Wed., Sept. 16, 2009.
    A presentation that I do every so often covering the history of increasingly large telescopes, the history of telescope making, and an overview of how amateurs build telescopes, the designs and materials they choose, and other random thoughts that I consider relevant to a discussion of ATMing.

"Building Faster, High Quality Newtonian Telescopes", Amateur Astronomy Magazine, Volume 63, Fall 2009.
    I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of fast Newtonian telescopes in this medium-length article.

"Bigger, Faster, Better!" by Gary Seronik, Sky and Telescope Magazine, July 2009.
    Gary Seronik discusses fast Newtonian telescopes, and features my 20" F/3 Starmaster telescope in his monthly Telescope Workshop column.

"A Travelscope Challenge" by Gary Seronik, Sky and Telescope Magazine, March 2009.
    Gary Seronik describes my 8" F/5.4 travel telescope in his monthly Telescope Workshop column.

"Large Telescopes, Projects, Trends and Issues", presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party, Wed., Oct. 1, 2008.
    Presentation about large telescopes and some of the issues that their builders deal with, such as thermal performance, mirror support, and trends in construction. Up to date information was given about Bob Holmes' 24", 32" and future 48" research telescopes with updated statistics from him, as well as the 43.4" telescope under construction by Robert Houdart.

"Optical BS", presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party, Thurs., Oct. 2., 2008.
    After giving a bit of information about my background, in this talk I explored some of the misconceptions about optics and optical testing by posing ten questions, the answers to which are either "True" or "BS".  I asked the audience to vote on which answer is correct, and explained the correct answer. I then disussed the answers, and finished up by talking about mirror cooling, quality metrics for optical testing, and issues with some common optical tests.

"Okie-Tex 2007", Amateur Astronomy Magazine, Volume 59, Fall 2008.
    Describes my experience at my first Okie-Tex Star Party.

"Building and doing research with a 32” and a 24” telescope and Large telescopes", presented at the Winter Star Party, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008.
    Presentation about Bob Holmes' 24" and 32" research telescopes with updated statistics from him, as well as the 43.4" telescope under construction by Robert Houdart, which I am making the primary and secondary mirror for, and Bob Holmes' proposed 48" F/4 prime-focus telescope.

"Building MBM 30" (updated version), presented by Mike Lockwood, Mike Conron, and Bob Nonnemann the Okie-Tex Star Party, Friday, Oct. 5, 2007.
    Describes the making of the 30" mirror and the construction of the MBM 30" telescope.

"Construction, observations, and research using 24" and 32" telescopes"
, presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007.
    This talk uses some presentation materials from Bob Holmes, who built the telescope, but also many photos and videos that I took while making the primary mirror.
    I made the primary mirrors for Bob's two telescopes and assisted with their setup.


"Construction, observations, and research using 24" and 32" telescopes", presented at the Indiana Family Star Party, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2007.

"A Modern Long-Focus Newtonian", Sky and Telescope Magazine, March 2006.
    Describes my 10" F/8.8 scope and its construction.

"A Portable Large-Aperture Cassegrain", Sky and Telescope Magazine, October 2006.
     Describes my 12.5" F/12.5 classical Cassegrain and its construction.

"Building an Open-Tubed 12.5" F/12.5 Classical Cassegrain", July 2005, Cloudy Nights article.
    Details the design and construction of my Classical Cassegrain, originally entered in the Cloudy Nights telescope making contest.

"Amateur Telescope Making - A Survey of the Craft", presented at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Nov. 28th, 2005.
    Also presented to the Astronomical Society at the University of Illinois (UIAS), Feb. 22nd, 2006.
    Previous versions of this talk were presented to UIAS in several previous years, and I update it every year.


"Building MBM 30", presented by Mike Lockwood and Mike Conron at the second annual Prairie Skies Star Party, Saturday, Oct. 1st, 2005.  Here is a link to my article about PS2005.
    An updated version (as of October 2007) was presented at the Okie-Tex Star Party 2007.

"Live Foucault Testing" - I took one of my testers to Prairie Skies 2006 and 2007 to test mirrors on the spot.  The results ranged from great to very bad.

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