The tube of the telescope has a Hexadecagonal section. It is built from 16 boards (1/4″ thickness) of western red cedar glued together using bird’s mouth joinery. This kind of joints has 2 advantages: it only requires one side to be shaped and it locks the 2 pieces together during the clamping process. The tube was then sanded down to 600 grit and coated with 5 coats of spar varnish.

The interior of the tube was painted black using India ink and later sprayed with 3 coats of polyurethane satin varnish. The black ink and the baffles will reduce parasite reflections which in turn will improve the contrast.

The focuser is a dual rate Moonlite Crayford with 1.5″ travel length.

The primary mirror is hand made. It has a F/D ratio of 4.75 and has a rating of 1/10 Lambda Peak To Valley.

The elliptical mirror measures 1.83″ . It comes from Antares Optics and is rated 1/18 Lambda PTV.

The Strehl ratio is 0.985 (primary) * 0.91 (central obstruction) * 0.99 (secondary) = 0.89 which is well above the diffraction limit of 0.84.

 

Took inspiration from these links:

Normand Fullum beautiful 16 sided wooden telescopes

A very nice octogonal dobsonian telescope out of walnut

Gary Seronik’s curved vane design for the elliptical mirror

Detailed construction of the curved vane