Builds

24-Inch f/3.5 Dobsonian Telescope

My largest telescope yet, with a primary mirror made by Nova Optical. I got the primary at a steep discount thanks to a small edge chip. Other than the 25" Obsession at WAS and the Van Vleck Observatory 24", my 24" was the largest telescope in Connecticut.
The original scope weighed about 200 pounds and was transported in my Toyota Sienna minivan with a pneumatic tire/wheelbarrow handle system and handicap ramps. Setup time was roughly 30 minutes. The eyepiece is almost always reachable with little more than a short step stool and is low enough to stand on the ground about 50% of the time.
The new version of the scope (yellow bearings) is around 140 pounds, an inch or two shorter, and sets up in about 15 minutes. It also features fans, infrared-reflective stain, composite materials, and a slightly better mirror cell.
The 24" was designed mainly for viewing galaxies, globular star clusters, and planetary nebulae. With a 2454mm focal length (a bit longer than a C9.25), it’s unable to get a field of view much bigger than 3/4 of a degree, and I’m boxed in at magnifications above 100x at essentially all times. Such are the compromises of all large scopes.
Unlike my previous builds, I designed, welded, and constructed the mirror cell on this instrument and had to learn a fair amount of metalworking to connect and tap/thread all of the steel and aluminum pieces. I also learned how to work with composite materials and join together multiple layers of plywood.
The scope was rebuilt in late 2021 for a lighter weight, but I never used it much after moving to Tucson, so it is now in a new home in California.

20.5-Inch f/4.5 Dobsonian Telescope

An ultimately unsuccessful project, but an adventure nonetheless. I got a 20.5" BVC primary mirror for free and was told the figure was adequate. As it later turned out, the mirror was absolutely horrible and could not handle powers above around 180x. The construction was also rather shoddy, with bearings that flexed side to side and a truly atrocious mirror cell. The scope was also more or less permanently assembled and could only be used by rolling it out from my garage on wheels. I spray-silvered the primary mirror, and while the coating was ugly, it gave ridiculously bright images - the scope hit 18th magnitude from my Bortle 6 backyard.
I ultimately scrapped the scope when I realized its deficiencies, leading to the 12" Dobsonian and a period where I only used commercial scopes. While the telescope was terrible, I still saw a lot of cool stuff and learned many lessons from it.

16-Inch f/4.7 Dobsonian Telescope

My second homemade scope and first big Dob, made in spring 2018. The original primary mirror, which I attempted to grind myself, was really bad (about 1 wave of astigmatism), so I switched it out for one made by Dan Landis. I made the scope itself on the floor of my garage with a router and circular saw. Despite the poor construction, the scope showed me a lot and won the 3rd place Junior award at Stellafane in 2018. It also graced the pages of the September 2018 Sky & Telescope. To make way for the 20.5" scope which succeeded it, I scrapped the structure and sold the mirror on eBay - where it actually turned up again in September 2020, and I nearly bought it (opting not to because I now have the 14.7" f/2.9).
You can read the build thread here on Cloudy Nights

10-Inch f/3.2 Newtonian Telescope

This scope was built in early 2020 using a mirror made by Logan Nicholson of Melbourne, Australia. Unlike all of my other homemade telescopes, this one was an equatorially mounted rather than a Dobsonian, mostly because the stubby 30" long tube was too short for a true Dobsonian mounting while at the same time the immense 29-pound weight meant it would be far too heavy for a tabletop telescope. I used an aluminum tube from Hastings Irrigation and a mirror cell from Orion Optics UK, and mounted the scope on an old Celestron ASGT. While it worked very well, the equatorial configuration frequently put the telescope’s eyepiece in rather irritating positions, and the total assembly weighed 120 pounds. I ended up ditching the scope for my 14.7" f/2.9.

Restoration Projects

1931 JW Fecker 3.5" Restoration

A scope I restored for the Westport Astronomical Society with the help of Dana Weisbrot. Dana tackled the hardware and OTA while I cleaned the optics and legs. The scope works well and provides beautiful images despite its age.

Celestron 1972 C8 Restoration

This scope came to me in incredibly bad shape, with dirty optics, a non-functional clock drive, and ruined paint. I restored it to perfect condition in 2019 and repainted it with the help of Dana Weisbrot of Twin Ridge Auto Body (and fellow WAS member). The scope now resides in the hands of Gianluca Carlinci in Italy, along with a 1971 C8 which I also sold to him that awaits a similar restoration.

1959 Criterion RV6 Restoration

A scope I restored with the help of Dana Weisbrot, who painted the tube and finder while I did the rest.