ATM Telescope Making Class: Bay Area resources & advice

["Yi-Zen Chu; Yiren Qu" <yizen@uclink4.berkeley.edu>]

Hi everyone,

I am a college student and an amateur astronomer. Together with some
friends, I run an amateur astronomy club at my college (UC Berkeley),
and I'm trying to study the feasibility of setting up a telescope making
class for students and club members. In particular, I was thinking that
it might be a great idea to get the members to build a telescope for the
club.

I am a total newbie to ATM, and so I hope to seek some advice regarding
setting up such a class, its feasibility, the resources needed, etc.

1) The club definitely needs to find someone to teach the class, since
nobody in my club has extensive experience in telescope making. To make
the class accessible to students, I hope to find someone who is able to
come to Berkeley. Also, it may be possible (though I'm not absolutely
certain) for the students to get official credit for such a class, but
in order to do so, the instructor must provide a class outline/syllabus
so that it can be submitted to the relevant people for approval. How do
I go about finding such an instructor? Do they usually charge for such
services (I understand it is a large undertaking), and if so, how much?

2) What resources are needed for ATM in general? Machining facilities?
Wood-working facilities? What specific equipment should I look for? I
probably need to liaison with the workshops in the engineering or
physical sciences departments. How large a working space do I need? I am
thinking of getting the students to build a medium sized telescope,
maybe something like a 13" Dob. Would grinding a 13" mirror be extremely
difficult to newbies - i.e. does one have to start off with smaller
mirrors?

3) I would also like to seek ATM resources, especially those in the Bay
Area, but also including books, websites, etc., that all of you think
would provide good background information regarding ATM itself, about
how to set up an ATM class, or simply related to ATM in general that
would be useful to know (e.g. where to get materials, etc.; I know the
atmpage has a links page to vendors).

4) Any other suggestions, comments, advice, etc. would be very welcomed.

Thanks for all the help!

Yi-Zen

Astronomers at Berkeley
http://www.stargazing.net/berkeleyastro/