Beginner's Corner
November, 1938

THIS IS THE beginning of "The Beginner's Corner," set aside from the more advanced discussions of the amateur telescope making hobby to be found in the surrounding department, and it will endeavor to live its life on the level of the average beginner, avoiding the more rarefied atmosphere in which the advanced amateur telescope maker customarily dwells. Its purpose is quite frankly to interest the new readers of Scientific American in the telescope making hobby, which has been dealt with by this magazine in nearly every number since 1926.

Actually to tell here how to make a telescope would not be practicable, since that would require too many words. This is told in detail in the book "Amateur Telescope Making." However, four very simple telescopes of the kind sometimes chosen by the beginner from those described in that book are shown above.

These telescopes have no; tube, but a tube is not a necessity on a telescope. The long column of wood pipe or other material, serves to support the large concave glass mirror at its bottom, and at its top a crosswise member carries a diagonal mirror and an eyepiece.

Such a telescope, simple as it is, will magnify 50 diameters. Take, for example, the second one shown above. Its builder, Ralph B. Rice, 17 Maple St., Saugus, Mass., says: "With this telescope the Moon is a wonderful study, Venus shows a beautiful, clean-cut crescent, Jupiter lights up the eyepiece like a sun, and Mars shows large and red."

The cost of construction varies with the amount of materials which can be picked up locally. A few have made such telescope for $8 or even less but it is better to count on about twice that sum (which is, however, a conservative, outside estimate).

In the surrounding department there are shown, this month, photographs of a number of machines for grinding mirrors. This may mislead the reader into the belief that such aids are necessary. Far from this, machines are much the exception, and most amateur, tyro or advanced, grind their mirrors by hand. At least 10,000 Scientific American readers have made their own telescopes.