Re: ATM's demise

[gary thomas <thomas@pld.com>]

First off I must thank everybody ont his list , I built my first scope 6
months ago and up till that point I had only looked through 2 small tasco
scopes I found saturn and 8 days later I had my first 8"f7 built and was
looking at saturn in a very different way, If not for this list and the
web pages I would be looking though a walmart special And I got to tell
you thats a thought I dont even want to think about.  I am the only one In
my area that even has built there own scope that I know about so Its
pretty lonely out here, I felt like frank after my first scope I was
pretty impressed that the thing even worked "so was my wife, all I heard
for a week was what if this mirror comes in and It doesnt work" so I woke
her up at 12:00 am and showed her saturn all she did was smile and went
back to bed, and for that moment I owe you guys thanks,
Gary T.
PS:  14" is on its way, I have decided My wife needs to get another job.

Gene Horr wrote:

> Frank Ward wrote:
>
> > The big difference between the ATMs of my generation, the 60s,
> > 70s, and 80s, and now is obvious.  Then it was a big deal to
> > >make< a telescope.
> >
> > Today the inquiring minds of our younger (and often better educated)
> > minds strive to make one >better<.
>
> Well, I don't know about the better educated part, but the "make
> one _better_ point struck a nerve.  I joined this list as I was
> disappointed with the commercially available photographic instrument.
> This is the type of "better" scope that I was searching for.
> Unfortunately I did not find what I was looking for, but stayed
> on the list anyway as it was overall interesting.  Plus I was
> able to do my good deed of the day a couple of times by offering
> what few tidbits of info I had at my disposal.
>
> So for _my_ needs, this list is a disappointment.  This is not saying
> that the list is bad, just that it didn't meet what I was looking
> for.
>
> [Asbestos Suite On] Ok, now I come to an area that will likely
> p*ss a lot of people off.  One of the slogans that I keep hearing
> ATMers saying is that they can build a *better* OTA for less money.
> The "less money" part is unarguable true, but I have seen very,
> very few examples of the "better" part.  Yes, they may be better
> than the "cheapo" OTAs that Meade, etc. sells, but compared to
> the horribly expensive high end units (OGS, MI, Torous, Takahashi,
> etc.) sell they suffer tremendously in comparison.  One often
> has to go above 50% greater aperture in an ATM scope to see more
> detail than the much smaller high end commercial unit (often with
> a much higher obstruction %!)
>
> And yes, I did compare with a large number of telescopes, with
> decent optics (at least as I could tell from a brief "star test".
> I am not saying that it can't be done, as I have seen some home-
> made OTAs that were *very* good and compared quite favourable
> with the commercial units.  But they were by far a minority.
>
> If people are getting into ATM for a _better_ OTA, based upon
> my limited experience I don't think the current ATM info out
> there does a good job of meeting their needs.  The flip side
> is that everyone seems to rant and rave about the quality of
> OTAs that I find not that good.  So maybe there isn't a widespread
> desire for _better_ units.
>
> Gene Horr
> genehorr@swbell.net