Harry 6 a.k.a "The Kite"

Harry 6 is a F/6.2 6" reflector scope. The mirror was made by Mark D. Harry. The OTA is constructed with 3/8" foamcore and 1/4" foamcore ribs. This photo was taken when I was out at Firefly Garden and I was observing Venus and Jupiter during the day. My daughter and I dubbed this location on the south side of the park describing where we catch & return fireflies.

The 2" low profile focuser was manufactured by Gary Wolanski. The spider and diagonal was purchased from ProtoStar. The mirror cell is Tags handmade from 3/4" and 1/2" plywood following a design found in Neal Howard's Standard Handbook for Telescope Making, 2nd Ed.

The scope has earned its nickname from fellow observers you may already know by name. The scope is so light and has a lot of surface area that it catches the wind very easily. Its lightness and poor mounting design contribute to shaky views when tweaking the focuser.

The scope is shown on the Bogen tripod, however it began life as a proper Dobsonian. It had a matching rocker box built with the same material. The rocker pinched the mirror box a bit but it worked okay. Since the mirror box was a bit out of sqare the bearings would ride off. Traveling with the rocker box was not convenient so the plywood base was attached with a Qwik shoe for the Bogen 410 tripod mount.

I've always said this is a temporary setup, but have not taken any measures to build another model. I have a number of designs worked out in Visio but that's about how far I've gotten.

peter