Ad Astra Observatory

This was the first weekend of several spent building out Trixie, the 13.1” scope.

I decided to build the major wood pieces out of 1/2” Birch Ply

and 1/2” Red Oak Ply.

It comes in 1/4 sheets at the “big box” hardware stores. After scratching my head some, trying to figure out how I was going to cut the shape I wanted, I decided on a hardboard template.

So I cut out the template, traced it onto the wood, rough cut it with a jigsaw,

and then taped the template in place

while I routed it to shape

and then routed it again rounded on each side.

Next step is to cut the holes for the optical path. That’s next weekend.