William George Weller's Page

 Here is a shot of the upper ring assembly of the big 'scope. The chair will give you some idea of the scale.  It lacks the eyepiece mount and focusser assembly, as well as the spider.   …See More

Here is a look at the 0.5 metre (20") mirror cell part.  They are all aluminium, and lack only the nuts and bolts to hold them together. These go into the bottom of the mirror box that I showed a few blogs ago. There are other parts to make, such as the strap that holds the mirror up when the telescope tilts, but that's a later blog. Coming soon, the upper end and secondary mount.…See More

As I was puttering around in my shop, as I am wont to do, I came across an old barn door tracker made by one of my Astronomy students some time ago. It is a double hinge platform, and works rather well. I took some time to tune  it up and have attached a picture of it. The little box on the right is a small polar alignment scope that…See More

I have recently begun to make progress on the mechanical parts of the 0.5 metre (20") telescope. The pictire shows the partly completed mirror box mated to the tailgate, that will eventually hold the mirror and its supporting cell.See More

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to the Nanaimo Unique Kids Organization. I presented a slide show to 12 kids and several helpers, describing the planets, and some of the more interesting objects that can be seen in the night sky. After fielding many interesting questions from the group, we sat and built a mobile of the Solar System. Unfortunately, the Sun did not co-operate, and so we did not get a chance to look through the telescope, but we did look at  sample lenses and a rather…See More

Well, alea jacta est, as we used to say in the Forum. We have made the decision to begin once more to instruct  eager students of all ages in the art and science of making your own personal telescope, optics and all.  After a long search we now have a place to work, and I think, enough interested in telescope making that we can make a go of it. The space that we have is not large, and so enrollment will be limited to at most 6 people per session. The cost per person/telescope will be $125.00.…See More

Just to keep things up-to-date (and Garland happy!) here are a couple of events that I recently attended.  On April 21st I gave a talk on results from the Hubble Telescope to the Gyro club. About 20 were in attendance, not bad since we were competing with the Canuck's game that night. Also, tonight (another Canuck's game!) I spoke on "Science Fiction and Astronomy" at the Parksville branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library. This time we had about ten in attendance. After the talk we had…See More

This is just a short note to bring members up to date on my outreach activities. On April 14 I had the pleasure of attending a session called "Opening the Door". This is a program for highschool students interested in Science, and is sposored by Science World in Vancouver. There were more than 20 people from the sciences, technology and trades, and the idea was to give students in grades 10, 11, and 12 some idea of the opportunities and challenges of the various callings represented there. I…See More

Must be another Blue Moon, because here I am writing again.  This time it is to solicite replies from anyone wishing to build (or finish! ) a home built telescope. When (if) I get enough responses we can discuss things like cost and time commitments required. Do not be intimidated by the thought of building your own 'scope. You will learn a few simple techniques of optical production, and perhaps a bit of carpentry or plumbing, and discover as many have the thrill of seeing the rings of Saturn…See More