Beginner's Corner
January, 1940

SEMI-PORTABILITY, permitting a telescope weighing 100 or 200 pounds to be trundled out of doors and, within the limits of one's dooryard, shifted from place to place, is often forced on the beginner by circumstances. Later, when the long-eared telescope bug has bitten him till he is far gone and past hope, he may throw up his job, sell his home, and drag his wife into the country to live where there is a wide horizon and better seeing, and there he may have a telescope on a fixed base under a permanent housing.

Two semi-portable telescopes mounted on caster trucks are shown here, the first an 8" made by H. R. Fertig, Chief of Yard and Terminal Operation, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Co., Chicago, III. He calls it "From Junk to Jupiter," as the mounting is made of old motor car parts. For the pedestal, a rear housing was bolted at its bell end to a truck or "dolly," on rubber-tired swivel casters. As this would be far too light and top-heavy, a half barrel was set around it and filled with concrete. Guy wires add to the stability. Total weight, 250 pounds. "I know of nothing I have ever undertaken before," Fertig states, "which gave me the satisfaction of seeing my rub-rub-rub, night after night, slowly develop into a telescope. It is also a beautiful thing to see Saturn come into the edge of the field of view and pass across the mirror without even a blur."

Another semi-portable is the one at the right, made by Robert E. Smith, D. D. S., Medico-Dental Bldg., Sacramento, Calif. Starting at the bottom it has: three castors; a 3/16" steel plate reinforced with angle iron; a welded iron taper; 3-1/2" standard pipe; a 3-1/2" to 2-1/2" welded reducer; 2-l/2" double-heavy pipe welded to a piece of the same diameter, machined for inside bearing; 2" double-heavy pipe also machined internally. Welding was done in local shops. The whole is both neat and mechanically well proportioned. Such a mounting should be inexpensive.