Cooper Telescope Project



"I am Digging a Hole in the Ceiling", by Jack Prelutsky

I am digging a hole in my ceiling
In order to gaze at the sky,
I began at the end of September,
And intend to be done by July.

I suppose I might look out the windows
But they aren't sufficiently clean,
And it's far too much trouble to wash them,
For I haven't the proper machine.

I could leave by the door if I choose to
I am sure I would succeed if I tried,
But the handle's been stuck since November,
And the weather is nasty outside.

So I am digging a hole in the ceiling
To study the sun and the moon,
I suspect I will take until summer,
For I am using a very small spoon.


Thanks to Joel Salomon for the poem.

We are building a telescope from scratch that Cooper can call its own. It will be a 6" f/8 Newtonian reflector, made using plans published by Richard Berry, an experienced amateur telescope maker. When it is finished, it will be a very easy to use scope, thanks to a "Dobsonian" mount that has no clamps and allows it to move freely with just a push of the hand.

The first stage will be the figuring of the primary mirror, the most important part of the scope. Unlike refractors, our telescope will not use lenses to gather light but rather a parabolically figured mirror. So, starting from a flat, circular chunk of glass, we will grind the surface in several phases until the shape has been modified into a concave parabaloid of sufficient accuracy.

On this page we'll keep a log of the work we've done.




October 21st.



Our mirror grinding stand, in the middle of "hogging" on October 14th.