In Praise of the Newtonian - First Light with the 6" f/8

Last night for the first time I took the newly finished 6" f/8 out for a spin in the backyard.

This began as a project scope.  Here is a picture of what I started with: a Meade 6" f/8 set of optics, tube, spider, and primary mirror holder.  The tube was pretty beat up and full of holes.  I took these pictures when I was testing an added focuser.

My idea was to fix up the tube and use this for a visual scope.  After I took these pictures, I dissassembled the scope and put the optics and other parts in a box for safekeeping.

Then I began work on the tube.  I first of all sanded it down and filled all the holes with wood putty.  Then I added two coats of shellac.  This took a long time to dry, and it smelled terrible, but shellac sealed the tube and hardened it.  Of course, it also made the tube shiny.  Shellac is pretty high gloss.

That's ok.  On the inside, I installed flocking from Scopestuff.  Here is the inside of the scope half-flocked.  The improvement is pretty obvious compared with the shellac, but the flocking is much better even than the flat black paint that was there before.

After flocking the tube, I sealed the ends and remaining holes and spray-painted several coats of oil-based blue metallic paint, followed by a high gloss sealer.  The tube shines blue now.  I also built some tube rings of pine, painted flat black, and installed them around grey foam rubber.

The tube looks great, now.

And after all that, how are the views?  Superb!  Best views of Saturn I have ever seen.  Admitted, I am not a planet guy, but at 240x everything snapped to.  In moments of clear seeing, I could see the sharp black line of the ring's shadow on the planet's face, the dark cloud band opposite the rings (and the texture and shape of the cloud band), three moons clearly (Titan, Dione, and Rhea), and maybe four (I was not sure what that was, though I did see something where Tethys was, just coming around the pole of the planet).  I missed Enceladus, but our own moon was just a few degrees away, washing out the sky.  The whole thing looked just like the photos, only snappier, three-dimensional, and more real.   Bravo!  I look forward to many nights with this scope, viewing for myself and showing the view to others at public star parties.