Oregon Star Party 2006 Telescope Walkabout

Mel Bartels, August 2006, images by Greg Babcock with photo of Greg's scope by Mark Thorson


Each year we hold a telescope walkabout at the Oregon Star Party.  Telescope builders share their experiences making telescopes.  People walkabout the telescopes to enjoy the telescope making experiences and to garner ideas for their own telescopes.

This year's theme is innovation: tracking ball scopes, travel scopes, string scopes, carbon fiber scopes, computerized dobs, ceramic mirrors, and better eyepiece shading.


Jerry Oltien's 10 inch ballscope with clock drive that's adjustable for latitude, featured in a recent Sky and Telescope magazine article


Merlin Raymond's trailered observatory


Jack Barne's computerized 17 inch dob


Chris Tribe's ultralight carbon and fishing rod 2 truss 14 inch


Mark Yonker's ceramic mirror 10 inch


Mark Yonker's collapsing scope


Greg Babcock's 10 inch travel scope



Chuck Dethloff's eyepiece shade - a number of scopes were sporting shades by the end of the star party


Bob McGown's  blue 12 inch


David Martin's 6 inch and 8 inch travel scopes


David Nemo's 20 inch string scope with 8 inch prototype


Enders and Petersen's 10 inch matching travel scopes


Gordona's scope [not on the walkabout]


Don Peckham's wireless handpad and laptop controlled  scope [not on the walkabout]


3 more scopes not on the walkabout




eof