Amateur Telescope Making and Equipment Links

Telescope Making

Why make your own 'scope? Because you can! You probably won't save any money, except possibly in the largest sizes, but dollar for dollar you will make a better telescope than a commercial purchase. A word of warning, make sure you have a supplier for all of the specialty parts you need before you begin construction.

• Stellafane Links Page
  Chock full of telescope making information. Hundreds of links.
• Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. (ATMoB)
  The ATMoB was founded in 1934 with the cooperation of Dr. Harlow Shapley at Harvard College Observatory.
• Telescope Making
  Complete instructions on how to build your own scope.
• List of Telescope Types and Mounts
  Wikipedia article.

Equipment Guides

Telescope Accessories (Visual) by Mike Usher
Compute telescope and eyepiece parameters (Excel must be installed on your computer) by Mike Usher

Equipment Suppliers

This list is not complete but just a sampling of what is out there:

• Orion Telescopes and Binoculars
• Coulter Optics
• Obsession Telescopes
• Webster Telescopes
• Binoculars for Astronomy (Advice and Reviews)
• AstroSystems Spiders
• Camera Concepts and Telescope Solutions
• Hands on Optics
• High Point Scientific
• ScopeStuff

Observing Chairs

The cure for backaches and contortions.

• Build your own chair (Complete plans, thanks to EAS member Dave Cushing)
• Build your own Denver chair (Complete plans)
  See also:
• Modified Denver Chair
• Wood Wonders (Commercial Version)
• Catsperch Observing Chairs