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Telescope Makers (1960 film)


long_arms

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I managed to stumble onto this old film from 1960 on Youtube.  

It seems "Cox, hargreaves and Thomson Limited" used to grind mirrors in an old air raid shelter :grin: ! Funny film. 

I was curious and found this website about the tunnels! http://thetimechamber.co.uk/beta/sites/deep-shelters-air-raid-shelters/coulsdon-deep-shelter-surrey

 Be good if one day some ATMs get permission from the council to use them for the same purpose again. 

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Fascinating movie - thanks for posting the link :smiley:

A year or two back there was a Cox, Hargreves and Thompson mirror set for sale on UK AB&S. I think it was a 10" F/6.5 or similar.  I believe the company could make optics to extremely high quality and had supplied mirrors to a number of professional observatories around the world.

Some more on their unusual premesis here:

http://www.simoncornwell.com/urbex/projects/chb/index.htm

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The British Pathe Youtube channel is incredible. You could quite easily lose a few hours trapped there watching old videos. 

If you search for telescope or astronomy there alone it comes up with dozens of archived footage. I won't post them all. 

Here's a bloke in 1942 with his homemade 14" Newt. Even made the screws :grin: !! Thats keen.  Is it the Earliest footage of amateur astrophotography?

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Sodium light One two-millionth of an inch? One fifty-thousandth of an inch more like!

Sodium light is close to one fifty-thousandth, isn't it?  But they were talking about one twentieth of that.  Still don't see how it gets to one two-millionth of an inch though.  A bit under one millionth, perhaps?

James

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Here's a bloke in 1942 with his homemade 14" Newt. Even made the screws :grin: !! Thats keen.  Is it the Earliest footage of amateur astrophotography?

That's excellent too. I bet Thatcham isn't such a great place to observe from these days.  The light pollution must be hideous.

James

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I cannot praise this film enough; I don't have the words!   I started later than the era presented but not much had changed by the time 1957 rolled around and I was 12.

There was a comment about one man making his 14" Newt in 1942.  Maybe we all don't remember, but there was a War going on, and supplies of things that were needed to grind and polish were very tight or toally restricted.  On my side of the Pond, amateurs resorted to using sand for their abrasives!  I can imagine just about everything needed to make a telescope was completely unavailable in Britain.   Few would know that even as a victor in WWII, Britain had rationing until 1954!

Yes, there is a message here and noted by another poster;  times were better in the days when things were done right!  And there was pride in workmanship.

ed

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Anyone who has read Martin Mobberley's  'It Came from Outer Space Wearing an RAF Blazer!: A Fan's Biography of Sir Patrick Moore' will appreciate this post. According to Martin, Patrick was attracted  to H P Wilkins' daughter (Eileen), unfortunately the sentiment was not reciprocated, probably he ever made his feelings known. She ended up marrying some wealthy businessman. Percy became embroiled in the o'neills bridge controversy which did not do much for his credibility. The story is well worth investigating.

John

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Interesting old films! Good find.


Yes, there is a message here and noted by another poster;  times were better in the days when things were done right!  And there was pride in workmanship.

Nah...those mirrors were only accessible by the very few. Now you can go to a myriad of dealers and get very decent quality kit for very little money. Plus the stuff that we have access to would have made them weep.

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Agreed. There's much better equipment available to skywatchers these days than at any time in the past. The far east offers us a much wider range of instruments than British manufacturers did and at lower prices; admittedly due to lower labour costs.

What the old-timer DIYers, with their laps and lathes, had was the romance of getting good results on a shoestring. We can still capture this feeling by making our own kit, as far as that is possible.

For example, I could have bought a binocular mirror-mount, but it was much more satisfying to have made my own, and I was able to customize it, too.

I've built small refractors and also Newts from 4-inch to 8-inch from scrap metal; buying out the optics. It was great fun at the time.

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