Kit Schweitzer’s 35-Year Dream
Some projects take a while but are well worth the wait.
THE MOMENT I OPENED Kit Sch-
weitzer’s submission letter and saw
the photo of him with his big brass
telescope, I knew I was going to write
about it. Kit’s opening words were the
clincher: “I think most amateurs would
agree that there is nothing more beauti-
ful in the fi eld of astronomical equip-
ment than a brass telescope.”
I absolutely concur. No matter how
fancy we make the Dobsonian or the
Schmidt-Cassegrain or any other kind
of scope, there’s something primal
about the brass refractor. As Kit said, “It
evokes visions of a time when we could
probe the cosmos with the eye and
discover much just by careful observa-
tion.” I’ve seen a few at star parties, andtThe fi nder and focuser were a fortuitous
discovery in a box of old scope parts. ALL^ PHOTOS^ BY^ SKYLA
R^ SHERBROOKE72 NOVEMBER 2019 • SKY & TELESCOPE
there’s always a circle of people around
them simply admiring the scope itself as
much as the view through it.
Kit’s scope was a long-term project.
It started in 1984 in Taos, New Mexico,
where he frequented the weekly Los
Alamos National Laboratory salvage
yard sale. On one such occasion he
purchased a 5-inch-diameter, fi ve-foot-
long brass tube, and thus the dream of
an all-brass telescope was born.
Over the next 35 years he moved to
Tucson and joined the Tucson Amateur
Astronomy Association, and he collected
and made parts as happenstance would
have it. A friend gave him a beautiful
antique bronze rack-and-pinion focuser
and brass fi nderscope that was in a box
of unrelated telescope parts. Also in the
box was a 12½-inch f/5 primary mirror.
Kit said, “So I made him a Dobsonian
out of the primary mirror in trade for
the brass parts to use in my scope.”
The focuser was from a much bigger
instrument, which meant Kit had to
fabricate an adapter to join it to thetube. The focuser had four bolt holes, so
Kit machined a back plate and brazed
a fl ange on the back plate to fi t into
the tube, then added four additional
threaded holes to make a push-pull
alignment system for collimation.
Several years later Kit bought the
glass for a doublet objective lens. Having
made several mirrors, he felt he was up
to the task, but after months of struggle
he fi nally set it aside. He did cast a
bronze lens cell and counter-cell in his
home foundry, but when he found a
factory-made objective (an iStar Optical
R30 f/12 doublet) that came in its own
aluminum cell, he kept the alumi-
num inner cell and modifi ed the cast
counter-cell to fi t.
The project lay dormant for several
more years until another friend gave Kit
an antique, very heavy steel alt-azimuth
tripod with a rack-and-pinion lifting
fork that once held a similar scope.
Making a cradle to hold the scope to
the mount proved more diffi cult than Kit
expected. He tried casting and he tried
fabricating one out of heavy sheet brass,
but neither option proved satisfactory.
So Kit turned toward the future andASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
When Kit actually used his
scope, he remembered to
remove the lens cap!