Finished is the word for the 6" portable 'scope shown in Figure l, made by Emir Kelley, of South Brownsville in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania. All its parts are of instrument maker grade of workmanship, as the photograph shows. A Hindle "crocodile-type" grinding machine ("ATM," 4th ed., p. 235), also made by Kelley, is equally finished in appearance and its description will be published at some later date. Kelley's telescope has an eyepiece adapter that rotates 90 degrees over the top of the tube in a transverse slot. It also has a weight-driven clock that will run 3-1/2 hours with one setting.

We detailed one of our super sleuths to dig up more data about Kelley, as we suspected him of being something of an inventive genius, and this secret operative reports that he is the senior partner of Kelley and Stewart, makers of auto jacks and cranes; also that he owns a famous grandfather clock of his own design and make, which not only tells the time and the moon's phases, but is a true Gentleman's Annual Best Friend and Life Preserver. Almost any married man will recall the awful feeling experienced when, one day of the year and generally along toward bedtime, his wife hands him a calendar and stands waiting before him with lips tight drawn; whereupon he is at first puzzled, then leaps suddenly from his chair, passes a trembling hand across a flushed brow and begins thinking fast for alibis. Once more, doggone it, he has forgotten his wife's wedding anniversary! And now it is too late-too late! To Kelley, however, nothing like this ever happens, for on that date, once each year, the good old grandfather clock he devised raises a small flag on a miniature flagpole and blows a whistle (Esquire please copy). Kelley then dashes downtown and buys flowers.

The design in Figure 2 seems almost ideal. It is a 6" Cassegrainian Gregorian combination made by Roy E. McAdams, a designer and builder of miniature gasoline engines, according to his letterhead, and situated at 2155 S. Limestone St., Springfield, Ohio. "Time consumed for making patterns, machining castings (which are of aluminum alloy) and grinding and polishing optical surfaces was approximately 8 months' spare time work," he writes.

"The main mirror is 30" in f.l. and the Gregorian combination has an amplifying ratio of 6. Despite the fact that its accuracy is excellent, it is used but little." [The present year is the 300th anniversary of James Gregory's birth.-Ed.] "The clock drive consists of synchronous motors and a train of gears which give sidereal time to a minute fraction of a second for a run of 24 hours."

The axes of the McAdams telescope have the cross-section urged by R. W. Porter in "ATM," and the plate attaching the declination axis to the tube is also a thick, heavy one. When mounted on a fixed base this 'scope should be rock-solid. The tube is a piece of engineering design, and the whole is also "easy to look at"-a factor not always combined with good engineering design, just as good engineering design is not always ideally combined with "easy to look at. ''

The third well designed telescope is shown in Figure 3 and is commendable for great rigidity. The maker of the mounting, William W. Maxwell, 1018 S. Franklin St., Mt. Pleasant, Mich., whose letterhead indicates that he runs an electric and ox-acetylene welding establishment, has really gone as far as Porter urges in "ATM" (4th ed.) in the direction of that desirable quality-something that few of the telescopes made by amateurs (and professionals) exhibit. This telescope was built as a memorial to the late William Tyler Olcott, for the Daytona Beach Star Gazers' Club, and is to be set up at Daytona Beach, Fla. The piers shown in Figure 3 are merely temporary rough ones of wood. Concrete piers are to be built.

Most of the details are best explained in Figure 4, which is well worth stopping to study at this point. The bearing of the tube is of the full three point type with really wide spread, and the mounting is as stiff as a mountain.

The counterweight tube, shown in Figure 3, is a piece of galvanized steel bent to form a 20-sided figure.

At the lower end of the polar axis shaft is a 120-tooth starter ring-gear (Figure 5) welded to the edge of the brake drum. The drive is a large hand-cranked phonograph motor and will run for 35 minutes. There are setting circles on both axes and the slow motions operate from the eyepiece neighborhood by way of flexible shafts.

The mirror was made by R. E. Stevens, 500 S. Ridgewood Ave., Daytona Beach, Fla., and is of Pyrex.

"Yours for bigger and better bottlenecks, Maxwell signs his data letter. Proportionately this mounting has the biggest bottleneck we recall seeing, outside of Porter g mounting for the 18" Schmidt at Palomar ("ATMA," p. 398).

PEOPLE, themselves, are fully as interesting as telescopes. The following notes attempt to snoop a bit into the private lives of some of the authors of 'ATMA," also some amateur telescope makers who seem to have burst right into professional optics.

It has turned out that among the authors of "ATMA" there was an unsuspected moving picture actor. "I presume you know," Capt. M. A. Ainslie of England (himself a capable mirror maker-"ATM," p. 100) tells us, "that the W. T. Hay, F.R.A.S., who writes on a 'Simple Chronograph' in 'ATMA' is better known as Will Hay, the comedian film star." Later, H. E. I Dall sent us an English newspaper from which the advertisement shown in Figure 6 is re- . produced. He states that a few years ago Hay "was in all the newspapers as discoverer of a new big white spot on Saturn, soon afterward was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and then published a book called 'Through Thy Telescope."' We find that this same book was reviewed in our June 1936 issue, before we knew Hay's identity. Hay lives at Hendon and owns a 6" refractor.

D. Everett Taylor, author of the chapter on "The Refractor-Metal Parts and Mounting," in "ATMA," before his recent retirement was one of the leading dentists in New York, also an outstanding tenor singer.

H.E. Dall of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, mentioned above (see the "ATMA" chapter on the "Camera Obscura") is an engineer who works on design for the 100-year-old firm of George Kent, Ltd., makers of industrial measuring and controlling instruments such as meters for the accurate flow of water, steam, gas, air, oil, and other fluids. The photograph of Dall, Figure 7, was taken by F. W. Epley of the Amateur Telescope Makers of San Francisco, when visiting him in England.A. W. Everest (opening chapter, "ATMA," on mirror making) is assistant to the superintendent of the distribution transformer factory of the Pittsfield, Mass., works of the General Electric Company. Harold (telescope drives) Lower of San Diego, California, with chapters in 'ATM" and "ATMA," during the World War was a Leatherneck and instructor on the rifle range and machine-gun school. His hobbies are archery and photography.

Franklin B. Wright, similarly with chapters in both "ATM" and "ATMA," is a telephone engineer with the Pacific Telephone Company.

Cyril G. Wates, "ATMA" page 274, is a maintenance engineer with the Edmonton Municipal Automatic Telephone System, at Edmonton. Alberta, Canada. His hobbies are mountaineering and photography.

John Bunyan ("ATMA." page 425, sidereal clock) is president of the Berthoud National Bank, Berthoud, Colorado.

PERSONALITY items about other prominent telescopticians: No American "opposite" to the English moving-picture actor Hay, named above, is known to us. The closest we can come to this is Rod LaRocque of Hollywood, an amateur telescope maker who now and then does a turn in pictures. Byron, Lord Graves, of Los Angeles, who knows numerous cinema actors and actresses in reply to your scribe's urging, writes as follows about LaRocque: "Used to be popular in the silent film days. Married Vilma Banky and is a very happy family man. Fine mechanic and has a complete metalworking and woodworking shop (Figure 8) back of his home. Makes ship models, furniture. Built a camera complete, except lenses, which he sold for S250. Built the 6" f/8 shown."

Another American movie actor who rates as a sort of "friend's friend" of telescoptics is Franchot Tone, whose father is president of the Carborundum Company. We doubt whether Franchot actually abrades glass with the paternal Carbo.

In "ATM," on page 402, there is a picture of Winston Juengst with a telescope. When this was inserted, quite a number of years ago, Juengst was only a young lad; but time marches on and the lad Juengst finally grew to manhood, entered the University of Rochester, took that University's stiff, four-year course in optometry (Columbia also gives a superior course in optometry), and today is teaching in the School of Mechanical Optics, Montague and Henry Streets, Brooklyn, New York where training is given in the mechanical work of filling oculists' and optometrists' prescriptions.

How many others may have been steered into optics as a life career through the awful effects of "ATM" we know not, but one W. J. Kiefer, who now has a job in the Bausch and Lomb Precision Optics Department and at present is surfacing various types of precision prisms. R. E. Clark, author of the chapter on eyepiece making in ''ATMA," recently told us about Kiefer. ''About five years ago," he writes, "we had a young fellow as instructor in our local high school-that is, Kiefer. He made a 6", shown in the focogram (Figure 9) and brought it to me for test and correction. I allowed him the facilities of my basement shop, and during three years I do not think he missed a single night. He then took an A.M. degree in optics at the University of Rochester and went with B. and L."

Urged to give some of the harrowing details about himself, Kiefer first states that the kindness, generosity, and patience Clark exercised in attempting to teach him practical optics are indelibly written on his mind. Regarding his first mirror Figure 9), he thought at the time that it really was finished, but adds that Clark "evidently didn't." Clark "took one look at it and I guess that was plenty!" He started Kiefer on eyepiece lens making and gave him a course of sprouts all along until he went to Rochester and studied mechanical design of optical instruments, physiological, physical, and geometrical optics. There he also earned part of his tuition by working in the university optical shop assisting H. E. Wilder, optics shop instructor and president of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Rochester who use facilities at Rochester University.

So, if you are just a raw, rank beginner, and are afraid you will never amount to much in the mirror figuring line, look at Figure 9, a first mirror which only a mother could love, and have faith that, in time, and with work, you too will eventually arrive.

Still another average telescope maker was R. W. Dietz, 2187 W. 25 St., Los Angeles, Calif., who is working on a group of Schmidt cameras for the Foundation for Astrophysical Research-that is, as a professional.

Ten years from now, what percentage of U. S. A. optical personnel will be from TNs?

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