My Instruments

Observatory  

My observatory from 1912

 
Observatory

The beautiful 92 mm refractor
 
Observatory

Front view, with the 85 mm glass plate astro camera to the left
 
Observatory

The portable (well...) field tripod. When I moved to the city I had to mothball the observatory building and the old heavy mount.
 
Observatory

The most portable is this 100 mm Maksutov-Cassegrain of russian origin. I made the fork mount of aluminium and got a very light and stable mount.
 
Observatory

Sometimes I use a webcamera as an "eyeball", looking directly through the eyepiece. I have tested two QuickCams and one Philips Vesta webcam. The Vesta is far superior to the others.

Tripods and Mountings

I have long realized that the key to high magnification and sharp images is STABILITY. Stable tripods and stable mountings. No flexing and no play.

For different purposes I have built several tripods and mountings. If you arrange the legs as triangles they will become very stiff and light. Most of the mountings are of the fork type.

I could never afford to build all these if I were to buy the materials new. So I regularly visit surplus stores and scrap merchants to buy aluminium, plastics, electrical motors, gear boxes and so on for 1/10 to a 1/100 of the original prices.

Sometimes wood is a very convenient material, and cheap too. Especially if you can recycle discarded beds and so on...

To look at some wooden tripods and mountings I have made, click HERE

 

 


Office address:
Bengt Rosengren
Lund Observatory
Box 43
S-22100 Lund
Sweden
fax: (+46) 046 2224614
e-mail:bengt.rosengren@citadellet.landskrona.se

Updated March 15, 2001