Re: Baffling and A comment

Jay Reynolds Freeman (freeman@netcom.com)
Fri, 31 Mar 1995 20:34:44 -0800

My six- and eight-inch Newtonians have solid, resin-impregnated fiberboard tubes (the stuff that Parks sells, or used to), spray-painted flat black on the inside. The tube extends more than one mirror diameter skyward of the focuser. I touched up the matte black surfaces on the diagonal holder with more paint, and for observations of faint objects I leave the (black) dust cap on the lower end of the tube, to keep stray light from sneaking up past the primary. (The cap comes off at higher magnification, to avoid wedging of cold air in the tube.)

These instruments have worked pretty well for observations of low-contrast objects: The six-inch is the one with which I saw the H*rs*h**d N*b*l* at 36X. -- Jay Freeman