There is some good news for those ATM’s (Amateur Telescope Makers) who are thinking of making a larger telescope mirror or for those people who have mirrors up to 16-inch that may need aluminising.

Apart from the plant that the society possesses, which can take an 8-inch mirror, there are two local contacts who have set up or are setting up aluminising plants that can handle larger mirrors.

One of our members, Walter Bachio, is busy setting up a plant that will take up to a 12-inch mirror and hopes to have another plant that will take up to 20-inch mirrors up and running some time.

In Pretoria, the chairman of the ASSA centre, Louis Barense has acquired a plant that can do up to 16-inch mirrors. Louis says that this plant has the equipment to do over coating, although he has not tried this out yet.

The current telescope making class is coming to an end soon, as most of the participants are doing the final bits and pieces for their telescopes in their own time. Some very nice telescopes have come out of this class, as has happened with all the classes we have run.

We have had a few enquiries from interested parties about running a new class and have agreed to start one in January 1999.

In order to get the glass and goodies organised for the class we would like to ask anybody who wants to join in to please let us know NOW as it takes some time to get supplies, especially the glass.

The class is run at Parktown Boys High school on Saturday afternoons. We are fortunate in having the use of all kinds of workshop facilities, including a lathe and lots of wood-working machines. Guidance is provided in telescope design as well as getting the optics done correctly.

If you are interested please call Brian Fraser at home on 803-8291 or e-mail fraserb@intekom.co.za.