The Guessing Game, Part 2

OK, here is the answer to the Guessing Game!  Here are all the parts you saw in yesterday's photograph, assembled together.  This is a mount for a small telescope! It is called an Alt/Az mount, which means it allows the telescope to point up and down as in "altitude" and to rotate from left to right, as in "azimuth."  It is the simplest kind of telescope mount.  I designed and built this mount which can be easily disassembled and the parts packed in a suitcase when I travel to dark skies out west.

And this is what the mount looks like when attached to a photographic tripod, which I always bring on trips, and when the telescope that I built this for, is attached to the mount.  This is a small telescope by normal standards - the lens in the front is about 3 inches in diameter.  My other telescopes have lenses or mirrors that are 6 inches in diameter, or 8 inches, or 10 inches.  I would rather bring a larger telescope to dark sky sites, but larger is heavier and the excess baggage fee would cost a fortune.  But just to give you an idea of how telescopes can improve our ability to see faint objects, this 3" scope improves our ability 81 times.  A 6" scope improves our ability 324 times.  And a 10" scope improves our ability 900 times!  So, yeah, I would rather have a 10" telescope under dark skies, but...  This telescope, by the way, is only 16 inches long and will fit in my backpack and only travels as carry-on.  That's the only safe way.  And under dark skies, it will give beautiful views of celestial objects!  Oh, and this mount is not varnished yet.  When it has three coats of spar varnish, it will be stunning to look at!