Telescope Workshop - 20th April 2023

“I love all these grown up toys!” This was the comment coming from inside the cafeteria at Mycenae House as I walked past with my rather heavy telescope mount to setup for our workshop. I had not anticipated how much effort was involved in taking this mount from the car up a flight of stairs and then to our assigned room. With my weekly workout completed, I started to setup in our meeting room. Mike Meynell, Tej Dyal and Clive Inglis were already setting up their respective kits and Mark Jeffery was assisting with logistics.

This was our first telescope workshop since the pandemic and was organised by Clive Inglis with Mike Meynell taking charge of the presentation and format. Mike wanted to make this an interactive session so that participants could get a chance to get up close with the various types of telescopes, mounts, accessories and to engage in discussions.

As the start time approached, we had six different types of telescopes and mounts setup with various accessories including different types of observational eyepieces, DSLR cameras and CCD cameras.

Photos showing all the equipment which was setup for the workshop

Mike started his presentation by giving a definition of a telescope and outlining its functions in terms of light gathering, resolution, magnification and focus. He went on to describe the two main types of telescopes, firstly refractors which uses lenses to form an image and secondly, reflectors which uses mirrors to form an image.

The pros and cons of each type were discussed and the participants were taken through various equations which could be used to derive parameters such as Dawes Limit, Magnification, Field of View and several other items.