Astronomy!

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Has anyone considered making their own optics for a telescope? Or has that practice disappeared?

The reason I ask is that I have built three and designed two of them. But that was more than 3 decades ago and the glass suppliers I used back then either don't exist now or else do not supply hobbyist quantities of various kinds of glass. So it doesn't seem possible to even attempt to make one's own eyepieces, these days. And I'm beginning to imagine that Willman-Bell is the only remaining supplier of bare reflector materials and even then, only if you want just the one or two offerings they have. I'm beginning to think that there is no longer much of a hobbyist practice, anymore, and that one has to be rich and/or extremely dedicated to the idea if they want to make one themselves. Used to be far more common and you could usually find someone nearby doing the same thing to work with. But perhaps I'm just away from the business for too long and need to hear from folks.

Jon

I had one of those electronic telescopes that would turn itself to the star or whatever you asked it to go to, but it kind of went crazy after a while. You'd ask it to go to the moon, and it would go to a blank spot in the sky. I probably had the settings off, but the controller was messed up and I couldn't see what it said.

Astronomy has been an interest of mine since I am about 5 but I never took any formal courses in it. I think I am going to sign up for an astronomy class in the near future.

As a teenager I had a telescope. I remember looking at the moon and mars. Once I saw Saturn and I was SO excited I ran to call my family and by the time they came I had to readjust the telescope. I didn't get a lot of mileage out of that telescope because I lived in a place where there were several feet of snow for many months of the year and when there was no snow there were lights from the nearby park.

I have a Meade LXD55 AR6 Refractor and a MEADE LPI camera for astrophotography.

unfortunately the Meade camera doesnt like Winxp64 bit so at the moment im stuck being unable to use it. Sure as heck ain't buying Winxp just so the thing runs. I did install it in a friend's system (winxp) and it worked fine.

Hate my luck