Bev,
I was just teasing about that scope. That 10" of mine was a old Meade DS-10 I bought new. It does not resemble the Meade I bought since I modified the mount with a larger drive gear, the new mirror cell, new sonotube with three 1/8" thick aluminum rolled sheet armatures to hold the mirror cell and the focuser. The middle armature inside the paper sonotube is the hard point for the mount cradle and the counterweight bracket.
The secondary mirror mount was a straight bar across the inside the tube, the new one a regular spider. This improves the roundness of the star image. The old bar produced two diffraction spikes on bright stars and made the dimmer stars ovate. A regular 4 vane spider produces 4 spikes and the stars appear more rounder.
The drive corrector was of a "Muntz" design, so I gutted out the cheap electronics after it stripped out the gears in a motor by overheating it and I made a new circuit with an additional autoguider port.
The Ebony Star was a textured Formica glued on surface used in the bearing with Teflon blocks as the other surface in a Dob mount. This was used by the do-it-your-selfers (ATMs or Amateur Telescope Makers) to make their own. These surfaces were on the older manufactured scopes until the Ebony Star surface was no longer manufactured. Various other bearing surfaces have been used since.
Cindy,
A Dob in the 6" to 8" range is a good beginner scope. They are cheaper and easy to break down and transport. If you can find a telescope shop, buy it from them. They are likely have good used scopes on sale as well at a reduced price. They can even teach you how to align and use it. An astronomy club may also help you. My club has a "Beginners's corner" for teaching the newbies how to use them. They can even get you to get that cheap scope to work, otherwise you might have to get another one if it is junk.
We have Open Houses with the various scopes and binoculars on the lawn owned by the members. You can choose what type of scope from the variety of scopes being used. We also have an Open House in January titled "How to use your telescope". The public would come in and we do a free alignment and give advice on how to use it properly. Keep away from the internet and the big box stores on these.
Joelene
