The Mudge-Rebold Paul telescope is a six-inch and the dingbat attached to it, which shows in the photograph, is an extemporized camera for taking sun photo graphs.

W. LUTGE, Pannier, South Australia, also had a little trouble but he "got there" just the same. "My telescope," he writes, "has an eight-inch mirror and I ground and polished three mirrors before I succeeded. No. 1 was broken by a fall, No. 2 cracked due to an icy draught when hot. (This is exactly what happened to Brashear on his first job, as told in his autobiography. -Ed.) I polished the third mirror on an HCF lap which I found much quicker than the pitch laps I tried first. I found the Foucault test difficult at first but at all times most interesting.

"We have an Astronomical Society in Melbourne and a few of the members are telescope makers. Most Australians, like myself, had considered that making an efficient telescope was outside the scope of the average person. I consider the instruction book 'Amateur Telescope Making' wonderful. I would be willing to help any Australian amateurs who might wish it. My telescope gives beautiful views of the moon, belts of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, and many double stars and star clusters visible in the southern hemisphere."

"THIS is a real alley telescope." So says Henry Kramer, 4338 North Fort Street, Detroit, Michigan, in describing his "coal scuttle" reflector. "But it, too, 'gits thar just the same'," he adds. "There are no details on such maps and photographs of the moon as are in the libraries of Detroit which can not be located with this eight-inch reflector, as crude as the set-up is. The HCF lap is far superior to the pitch lap; it worked, faster and was so adaptable that any kind of variation for correction could be had. There was no need of the bootlegger's services, as the rubbing alcohols, Alcorub and Alcol, were all right and silvering was easy. It is just possible that a new planet will be discovered ( ? ) any night now, as we are blazing away with a Kodak trying to make a photo, though no one has profited so far except Mr. Eastman."

Mr. Kramer's attachment, a coal scuttle with its bottom knocked out, is for excluding stray light from houses and street lamps, also for discouraging the activities of stray fingers which seem to have a fatal attraction for one's nicely polished mirror.

"AS I live in a small furnished room, and 1, have no access to tools, I was forced to attempt something light, portable, and easy to make." So says John Ortueta, 222 East 11th Street, New York City, who continues: "The telescope shown in the photograph was made mostly with tools and materials bought in the ten-cent stores. It is similar in principle to the one shown in 'Amateur Telescope Making' on page 29. It consists of a mahogany box open at one side, containing the five-inch mirror. When not in use the box stores the prism and eyepieces behind a small lock. The main column is of wood and is jointed and adjustable. The whole thing folds into as small a space as a camera, yet is easy to assemble and weighs less than ten pounds. It is equipped with slow motion and a finder."

C. D. FREEMAN, Care E. P. Maxted, R.4, Caldwell, Idaho, uses his telescope "in connection with a series of lectures on astronomy," and, he adds, "thousands of people have had the privilege of looking through it." His mounting is constructed of pipe fittings and the eyepiece is on the polar axis. The mirror is a ten-inch and the rather elongated tube is quite impressive.

WORD has been received from Miami that Professor G. W. Ritchey arrived there from Paris with the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope he expects to use in making a study of the seeing conditions in that locality. With him is G. H. Lutz who has cast a 36-inch Stellite mirror which Professor Ritchey also expects to figure and test. The newspapers have given the impression that a very large observatory was about to be built in Miami. Perhaps this is a bit "previous," as it never is wise to expend large sums in this manner until the local seeing has been well tested. The Ritchey-Chrétien telescope is a modified Cassegrainian having mirror curves which do away with the distortion of out-of-axis images, giving a flat field.

WHEN Brother-amateur-telescope-maker Clyde W. Tombaugh, after diligent search, spotted the image of the planet Pluto on a plate at the Lowell Observatory, where his diligence and enthusiasm had won him a job some time previously, there was a certain tendency to minimize his contribution. Some said he merely happened to be the one to look over the plate and it was stated by one astronomer that Tombaugh was no more the discoverer of Pluto than the seaman at the masthead of Columbus' ship was the discoverer of America because he happened to see its shoreline first. Tombaugh's modesty and good taste kept him entirely clear of controversy and now, as so often happens in science, honor pursues him who runs away from it (just as it usually avoids him who runs after it). The Royal Astronomical Society, the association of professional astronomers of Great Britain, has just awarded Tombaugh the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of that society. Other telescope makers who aspire to gold medals may be encouraged by the thought that there are other worlds to conquer, there being no assurance that Pluto is the last planet in the solar system.

The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) is a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to helping people enrich their lives by following their passion to take part in scientific adventures of all kinds.