The LCAS LakeSky 20" Telescope

This page contains a collection of images of the finished telescope.

The work has been performed by Leon Fasano and John Clevenger.

The restoration of the old Nishimura mount was the first step in building the LCAS 20" telescope.

(Images by Leon Fasano and Joe Shuster.)

The Restored 20 inch Telescope.

LakeSky 20 Telescope Fact Sheet

This Nishimura telescope was manufactured at the Japanese NKM Nishimura Factory in Kyoto, Japan, in the late 1950s. Only three other Nishimura telescopes are known to exist today. Its original tube was 7-feet long and, with the base, weighed 2,000 pounds.
It was built with a 16-inch mirror as a Cassegrain design, with an equatorial mount and pier base.
The telescope was purchased used by Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Ill., in the early 1960s. At some point the telescope was taken out of service and disassembled. The telescope was donated to the LCAS in November 2000, but without its primary mirror or other optics. The telescope was then housed and worked on in a club member's garage until it's completion in 2005.
LCAS received the telescope in very poor condition, with missing or damaged parts and no electronics, circuits or schematics. Club members worked together under chief telescope builder Leon Fasano, restoring and rebuilding both the tube assembly and base.

The tube assembly was redesigned and rebuilt with a 20-inch mirror and an f/4.5, Newtonian tube design. This new design allows for a wider field of view and brighter objects than the original Cassegrain focus.
In June 2001, Oriental Motor Co. in Japan was contacted and confirmed that replacement motors and gear heads for the telescope base were available.
During the summer and fall of 2001, six motors were cleaned and rebuilt, and a seventh was purchased. All brass components were polished and reinstalled.
A Nishimura telescope owner in New Mexico was located via the Internet and provided important details and photos on missing components.
Electrical circuitry was reworked several times. The controls will allow users to move the telescope with a handheld controller. The telescope could be upgraded to add "go-to" capability.
In August 2003, a new 20-inch mirror was mated with the mirror cell. Design and construction of the tube assembly continued in 2004 and into 2005.
Finished in early 2005, the telescope stands about 10 feet high and weighs an estimated 2,000 pounds. LCAS is pursuing a permanent site for the LakeSky 20 Telescope.
The 'new' telescope will collect 5,100 times more light than the human eye. Users will see everything from galaxies and nebulae to the empty space between Saturn's rings.

Please also refer to the LakeSky Telescope pictorial history.

For more information on the LakeSky Telescope read the latest fact sheet or email us at contact@lcas-astronomy.org

This page last updated on December 23, 2007