Old telescopes built by students in Lincoln Park

 Above is the two mirrors from the 12.5 inch telescope and the 8 inch telescope.  We refer to the mirror size or objective size when referring to a telescope.  So a 12.5 inch telescope like the newtonian we can see below has a mirror with 12.5 inches as it's diameter.

Below I decided to take the telescope tubes on a quick trip, below is a good size comparison of the three telescopes which were built by Lincoln Park students.  The 12.5 inch was built in 1962 by Hector J Robinson's students, the 8 inch blue tube was built by our club back in 1977 and I built the small white F4 four inch telescope in 1977 as a student.  The only one that is currently working is my old small four inch reflector.

These aren't the only telescopes that students in Lincoln Park built.  There were about 8 telescopes built back in the early 1960's by Mr Robinson's class which were smaller than the 12.5 inch monster that eventually ended up being housed in the observatory.  And we also built a 10 inch F5 telescope for Mr. Bruce Coultas, the 8th grade principle back in 1977.  We built two telescopes in 1977 and I built a third at my house.  

The 10 inch newtonian telescope built for Mr. Coultas was "to heavy" according to later reports by Bruce.  He said it was so heavy he had to have his son help him take it out to view with it.   The 8 inch blue tube was also quite heavy.  I can remember spending an evening fiberglassing that tube and painting it with Mr. Coultas.  That tube was pretty heavy.  The large simple pipe mount design on those old telescopes was pretty bulky as well.