[ATM] Public Terrestrial Telescope: Vandalism Concerns

["David Sleeter" <d.sleeter@roadrunner.com>]

Regarding the scope's potential as a target for vandalism, the most common
form of telescope-vandalism is people painting or scratching their initials
on the lenses. To protect the scope's lenses, I'll cover the objective and
the eyepiece with optical windows cut from 1/4" plate glass.

A few days ago, using my Celestron Nexstar 80 as a test-bed at
magnifications of 17X and 23X, I held a piece of standard 1/4" plate glass
over both the objective and the eypiece, and, though there was a slight
dimming of the image (because the glass isn't coated), there was NO
significant change in the quality of the image. At such a low magnification
during daytime use, an optical window made of 1/4" plate glass seems to work
fine.

My current plan is to buy one of the glass cutters used to cut circles. Then
cut a dozen or so plate glass windows for the objective and the eyepiece, to
use as replacements when needed.

Dave Sleeter/Moreno Valley


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