Homemade Telescope Case
I'm laying low for a while since I'm fighting off a cold. The cold isn't so terrible (yet) but my mast cells are angry causing some serious problems related to my primary illness. While I'm recovering, I am taking advantage of the quiet time to catch up on some blog entries.
One thing I have been meaning to write about is a wooden telescope case I designed and built. I have this nice, new, high-quality telescope but I had no way to store it. I feel a telescope of this quality deserves a nice case. Actually, I'd like to do this with all of my optics and I do have plans to do this very thing... I just need to find the time and energy!
I just finished the first homemade case which is for storing my better telescope and I have another wood case almost finished which is to store the tracking mount for this telescope. I also want to build a few other cases for other astronomy gear. This is something I should have started doing many years ago with my camera gear and telescopes. Getting organized is a good thing.
The case measures 36" x 13-1/4" x 11" overall. I built the second case which is used for the tracking mount to be the exact same size. I want most of these cases to be easily stackable so, if I do make a couple of smaller cases (for smaller parts), then I want two cases to total 36" long when place end to end while being the same width as the larger case so the two cases, end to end, have the same footprint as this first case.
I installed brass handles on each end of the case...
I installed latches on the front to hold the lid closed...
I used most, if not all, of the packing foam that was included in the original shipping box and then designed the wooden case around that packing foam...
The telescope rests completely on this high density foam from the original packaging and is protected with the same foam on each end...
These two brackets which hold the telescope in place are felt lined where it is curved and in contact with the telescope...
One end of the bracket slides into a groove...
The other end rests on a wooden cleat and screwed down with winged bolts screwing into a T-nut mounted on the other side of the wooden cleat... it is simple but effective...
I had some extra room in this particular case so I added a few cutouts for some of my 2" eyepieces...
A chain keeps the lid from opening too far and bending the hinges...
This particular telescope is my better telescope... an Explore Scientific ED 102mm APO Triplet refractor. This is a very fine piece of optics and deserves to be well-protected in a nice wooden case!
I'm very happy with this case and I look forward to having more cases to store my astronomy gear and, eventually, my photography gear too.
One thing I have been meaning to write about is a wooden telescope case I designed and built. I have this nice, new, high-quality telescope but I had no way to store it. I feel a telescope of this quality deserves a nice case. Actually, I'd like to do this with all of my optics and I do have plans to do this very thing... I just need to find the time and energy!
I just finished the first homemade case which is for storing my better telescope and I have another wood case almost finished which is to store the tracking mount for this telescope. I also want to build a few other cases for other astronomy gear. This is something I should have started doing many years ago with my camera gear and telescopes. Getting organized is a good thing.
The case measures 36" x 13-1/4" x 11" overall. I built the second case which is used for the tracking mount to be the exact same size. I want most of these cases to be easily stackable so, if I do make a couple of smaller cases (for smaller parts), then I want two cases to total 36" long when place end to end while being the same width as the larger case so the two cases, end to end, have the same footprint as this first case.
I installed brass handles on each end of the case...
I installed latches on the front to hold the lid closed...
I used most, if not all, of the packing foam that was included in the original shipping box and then designed the wooden case around that packing foam...
The telescope rests completely on this high density foam from the original packaging and is protected with the same foam on each end...
These two brackets which hold the telescope in place are felt lined where it is curved and in contact with the telescope...
One end of the bracket slides into a groove...
The other end rests on a wooden cleat and screwed down with winged bolts screwing into a T-nut mounted on the other side of the wooden cleat... it is simple but effective...
I had some extra room in this particular case so I added a few cutouts for some of my 2" eyepieces...
A chain keeps the lid from opening too far and bending the hinges...
This particular telescope is my better telescope... an Explore Scientific ED 102mm APO Triplet refractor. This is a very fine piece of optics and deserves to be well-protected in a nice wooden case!
I'm very happy with this case and I look forward to having more cases to store my astronomy gear and, eventually, my photography gear too.
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