Mitchell Sports Photography

Here I am right after getting home with the mirrors.

Specs are on the edge,
Galaxy Optics 18" technically it's an f/4.45 .

Here's my setup while determining the exact length to cut the tubes. I focused on a telephone pole 1/2 mile away.

And here's the pile later that night with freshly cut poles ready for the first setup.

All set up and ready to roll.
See how fast I can set it up?

One last shot before the first view, feel the anticipation building?

Ahhh! First light.
Can you guess the first target?
Hint: I'm looking East at about 10:30pm June 6 (Northern Hemisphere)

Another hint? It's a big juicy globular cluster guaranteed to please.
Yes, M13! It almost knocked me off the ladder.
I love this scope, besides pulling in 224% more light than my 10", it's balanced and well behaved. Very smooth throughout the whole range, stays where you put it, the 6 truss design turned out very well (details to come) as did the cam clamp fastening system.

So I have a few loose ends to tie up. Mount the finder scope, construct a mirror box cover, stain the secondary cage, baffle the secondary cage, add electricity for a fan and secondary dew heater, make a bag for the trusses, and send the mirrors off <sniffle, sniffle> to get recoated.
This project was a lot of fun. I enjoyed coming up with solutions to the different set of problems a larger scope presents, like speeding up setup time while reducing weight and packaging it small enough to fit in my car.

Clear skies!

Final version July 12, 2002:

All issues are resolved, time to enjoy this thing!

Set up for second light (actually first light from dark skies). Cousin Ray getting his first look through *any* scope checking out the crescent moon.

Myself later that night very happy with the performance of the new scope. What a change from the 10"!

Set up in the snow waiting for darkness.

All the pieces ready for assembly.

Fills up the trunk pretty good.

Just waiting around.

The anticipation is building at evening twilight.