When I was in junior high I ordered things out of the Edmund Scientific catalog -- always dreaming about getting the fresnel lense that could melt concrete or a Astroscan telescope. Not such big aspirations in the grown up world, but I was in Jr. High, so sue me.

Not only does Kurt Maurer own an Astroscan, he's taken the optics out of it, and made a miniature dobsonian scope out of it. It's as cute as a button.

Since I have Travis all excited about building telescopes, I think our next project will be a pair of newtonian/dobsonian scopes. Something a little bigger than this one though :). I'd like to start out with a 12" mirror, anyone have an opinion on a doing a mirror this large as your first? I hear varying opinions on the matter -- an old friend ground a 10" mirror, and said it wasn't too hard to do.