Sky and Telescope - January 2018 - 84

FOCAL POINT by Jim Hahn

Wheel of Misfortune
A freak accident after the August eclipse mars the author's memory of an otherwise sensational event.

JA N UA RY 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

Little did I know it would prove to be
"last light" for the venerable scope.
Laura and I had planned to continue
our vacation for a few days, including
an evening in Galena, Illinois, where
we'd honeymooned three years before.

cardboard tube collapsed. The castaluminum primary mirror cell broke,
the secondary mirror spider got severely
bent, and all the external accessories,
except the focuser, were sheared off the
tube and damaged.

Can an amateur astronomer mourn his lost telescope?
But it was not to be. On the interstate
north of St. Louis, I caught a glimpse of
a large object barreling toward us across
the median. A split second later, a wheel
from a southbound tractor-trailer rig
slammed into the side of our Chevy
minivan. The impact jolted the vehicle,
but I regained control and pulled onto
the shoulder.
Once we realized we were relatively
uninjured, we turned around to survey
the damage. The view out the driver's
side of the van startled us - we saw
mostly open air. Every window was
gone; so was the sliding side door. We
got out, shaking glass fragments from
our hair and clothing.
When Laura opened the passengerside sliding door, her heart sank. We'd
carefully placed the optical tube across
the second-row seats and secured the
seatbelts around it. But the wheel's
impact had shoved the telescope violently across the vehicle and into the
opposite door. The resin-impregnated

It's hard to walk past the spot in the
house where I stored my scope without
bemoaning its absence. Can an amateur
astronomer mourn his lost telescope?
I'm allowing myself to do so, but I'm
also planning a rebuild.
If the heart of a reﬂector is its
primary mirror, this telescope still has
a faint pulse. Amazingly, no damage occurred to either mirror, other
than barely scuffed coatings. And the
Edmund Scientiﬁc equatorial mount was
unscathed, as was the accessory case
with its trove of eyepieces and ﬁlters. I
will have the mirrors recoated, purchase
a new tube, and build a new primary
mirror cell and secondary mirror holder.
Almost 40 years on, I am once again
an amateur telescope maker. With luck,
the 8-inch scope will be ready for my
next astronomy presentation at our
local nature center.
¢ JIM HAHN is a software engineer in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

COURTESY OF JIM H A HN; WHEEL: TH AWOR NNUR A K / BIGSTOCK PHOTOS

THE GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE was
glorious (see page 14). But for me, the
afterglow faded more quickly than I
could have imagined.
I'd witnessed the last total solar
eclipse to cross the continental U.S.,
in February 1979. For that event, I'd
convinced my mom and dad to drive
my younger brother and me to North
Dakota, one of only four states the path
of totality would cross. I'd completed
my homebuilt 8-inch f/6 reﬂector just
months before. The big Newtonian was
too bulky to ﬁt in my parents' sedan, so
I had to settle for views of the corona
through my 50mm Kmart refractor.
For the 2017 eclipse, though, my
prized, handmade scope made the
trip. My wife Laura and I had booked
a hotel room in Festus, Missouri, a
year in advance of the eclipse, and we
drove there from Milwaukee for the
event. The views through my old
scope were spectacular, both
with a custom-crafted ﬁlter
during the partial phases
and unﬁltered during
totality. That evening,
I regaled my sister
and brother-inlaw with views
of Saturn, M7,
Albireo, and
other celestial
showpieces.

Sky and Telescope - January 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - January 2018