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On [another forum's thread] that discussed building simple telescopes for educational purposes, I was pointed to an inexpensive kit offered by Surplus Shed. Since the kit cost only around $15.00, it didn't seem like too ominous a risk to try out. Full disclosure, I have never owned or operated a "real" telescope (I do have an old replica extending telescope that I bought from "The Museum Company" a few decades ago, but I'm definitely not counting that as "telescope experience"). When it comes to telescopes, I am a beginner in the densest sense of the word "beginner." As such, any cheap or low maintenance way to evaluate my true interest in this hobby had considerable appeal. So when I saw $15.00 - you can barely buy a decent dinner for one for that amount these days - I thought, "send me that cheap nearly zero risk scope!"
The kit comes with everything pictured on the website (though I didn't seem to receive the small round black object to the lower right of the lenses, but it also didn't seem to matter). It does not include a body tube. It also comes with one page of all-text instructions, which, especially for a beginner like me, included some unfamiliar terms. But I'm supposed to learn something from this, right? Thankfully, the Internet quickly helped me out with terms such as "crown lens," "flint element," and "double convex lens." The following image really helped me figure out what the text referred to:
Looking at pictures of "double convex lens" on the Internet assured me that I had the lenses in proper alignment to each other. The crown lens locks into the holder, but only a small retainer ring and the body tube hold the flint element in place. Once assembled, removing the tube requires caution since the flint element just rests against it and it could easily tumble out. The focuser came fully assembled, except for inserting the eyepiece into it, and it worked as-is.
That brings up the, surprisingly, most difficult part of building this scope: obtaining a tube. The instructions recommend a tube with an outer diameter of 54mm. Since I reside in the land of Imperial measurement, that meant a diameter of approximately 2.13 inches. Most of the tubes I saw online had 2" diameters. Would that be too small? Only one way to find out. Sadly, my quest to find a 2" diameter tube anywhere near me and ready at hand failed miserably. Office stores carried 2 packs of 3" tubes, but no 2" tubes. Most of the 2" tubes available "in the back" of stores only came in 10 or 50 packs and cost far more than I wanted to pay for this experiment. Additional searches on my mobile produced nothing in my area. In the end, I had to look online where 2 packs of 2" tubes cost $17.00 or more.
But I had an extreme dose of luck.
A few months ago, I had ordered a poster online and it had arrived in a tube. I hadn't thrown it out, and it happened to measure 2" in outer diameter exactly. When I fit the telescope parts into it, they fit "perfectly enough." The instructions also say that the tube should measure "about 250mm long," or about 9.8 inches. I cut the lucky tube into 10" segments with a small X-acto saw blade and a piece of paper as a guide. So, thanks to some luck, this experiment only cost me the price of the kit alone. Anyone without a lucky tube nearby who wants to try this kit out may have to also pay an extra $15 - $20 for the tube, except for those who may have more resources or options available.
When all of the parts fit together, it looked like this:
The guide paper used for sawing looked generally better than the bare cardboard, so I left it on.
Then I opened the window, pointed the scope outside, turned the focuser and saw a pretty decent, but inverted, closeup scene of trees across the street. The picture below doesn't do the view justice at all, as I took it by trying to hold the telescope steady with one hand and holding my wobbling mobile phone with the other. I probably also turned the brightness exposure on my phone's camera down too low. Regardless, it all seemed to work as promised. Having just completed it today, I haven't yet pointed it to a dark sky, but I hope to try that out soon.
Other information: the 0.965" eyepiece has a 16mm focal view and the focuser says it has a focal length of 360mm and a diameter of 50mm. Do I know exactly what all of those things mean? Not really, but I at least now have a basic, a very basic, telescope from which to base other specifications upon.
Though I haven't used the telescope enough yet, I liked the challenge, though by no means daunting, of putting one together. I now have a basic idea of how lenses for this type of telescope fit together, though I know I still have a lot lot lot to learn. Overall, for $15.00 (again, thanks to the tube I happened to have), I found it a worthwhile, enjoyable (except for the tube part) and fascinating experience as a beginner. We'll see how it holds up out in the world.