4 ms·

My telescope(s). It's a very rewarding hobby, from making the mirror (manual labor + measurements with interferometry), silvering it (a bit of chemistry), desi

My telescope(s). It's a very rewarding hobby, from making the mirror (manual labor + measurements with interferometry), silvering it (a bit of chemistry), designing in CAD and building the actual usable telescope, there are a lot of moving parts to design, and steps that you can either do or delegate. I think anyone who likes manual work can find a piece of a telescope that's enjoyable to work on. The feeling you get after a few nights of hardware debugging, when everything properly works and you get a sharp focus in a clear night, that's quite a step above any of my other hobby projects to this day (: Plus, you can always improve it with ergonomic modifications or additions to make observing sessions smoother. Edit : here's a pic at first light of my last one (8" f/3.52) https://camo.githubusercontent.com/5939ba170acf1e9d6462d8268c106f56a64ed0f7078f0af2001ce855aa78acae/68747470733a2f2f6c756361737369666f6e692e696e666f2f706963732f6b322f6b32322e4a5047 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/5939ba170acf1e9d6462d8268... Now moving on to do twins 16.5" and 16" mirrors and scopes with a friend who is joining me into this adventure :-)

PostOnce 3y ago
Telescopes are often built simply (and rightly) as functional tools or instruments, and that's great of course, but I wanted to compliment you on making a non-ugly, aesthetically pleasing telescope; a bit of craftsmanship goes a long way, looks great man.
bhouston 3y ago
So amazing. Do you have an astrobin.com? Mine is here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/bhouston/ https://www.astrobin.com/users/bhouston/
- chantepierre 3y ago
  Really nice work ! I don't, as I'm doing 100% visual. Your Sadr region picture is really beautiful with subtle contrasts preserved
jacknews 3y ago
I designed and made a 'cheapscope' out of PVC pipe, 3d printed parts, and cheap aliexpress 76mm mirror, mounted on a camera tripod. It works well enough for the moon etc, and, as I'm based in a developing country, many people have never seen the sky except with the naked eye, so the gasps and oohs, etc are priceless. I had intended to document and open-source the whole thing, but was busy at the time, and the PLA prints have since completely disintegrated in the hot humidity, lol. Maybe I'll get back to it again, with PET or nylon this time.
- chantepierre 3y ago
  That's very nice. All DIY efforts to make visual astronomy more accessible are more than welcome as consumer products are priced for the global market.
geocrasher 3y ago
Cool! I have built Hadley, a 114mm Newtonian that is mostly 3d printed. https://miscdotgeek.com/3d-printing-the-hadley-114mm-newtonian-telescope/ https://miscdotgeek.com/3d-printing-the-hadley-114mm-newtoni... It's done now, and has produced some nice images, but I need to spend more time with it to get planetary images etc.
- chantepierre 3y ago
  Nice, Maff (& people who joined him) has done wonders to spread low-cost capable scopes with this project ! Best of luck for your future sessions
passion__desire 3y ago
Get normal public involved in your adventures like this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE
- chantepierre 3y ago
  That's my ultimate goal, an itinerant astronomy car to go in villages where there are no astronomy clubs. I also started teaching the few things I know about mirror making to my club and whoever asks. I'm building public-compatible stuff now that I have my own stuff that is quite delicate to handle, after a few public nights where children grab onto a high-end eyepiece... The 16.5" will be a very rugged scope to fulfill this purpose. I think John Dobson's approach to telescopes is the ultimate one, that is, the value of a scope is the number of people who looked through it
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Instead of an eyepiece, i strongly recommend having a DSLR or other camera attached and showing the display on a nice screen. It makes it soooo much easier (although, it doesn't work great for nebulas or other faint objects). I've had a parent sort of utter "wait... we're looking at the moons... of jupiter... in real.... time?"
sdenton4 3y ago
I've got an unfinished 8-inch mirror that I spent a month of evenings grinding... Someday I'll get around to polishing and building out a cargo-bike-collapsable structure for it. A cool thing about DIY telescopes: You can get better results than a commercial mirror, because you can turn your time into quality at a rate which is not economically feasible for manufacturing.

PostOnce 3y ago

Telescopes are often built simply (and rightly) as functional tools or instruments, and that's great of course, but I wanted to compliment you on making a non-ugly, aesthetically pleasing telescope; a bit of craftsmanship goes a long way, looks great man.

bhouston 3y ago

So amazing. Do you have an astrobin.com? Mine is here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/bhouston/ https://www.astrobin.com/users/bhouston/

chantepierre 3y ago
Really nice work ! I don't, as I'm doing 100% visual. Your Sadr region picture is really beautiful with subtle contrasts preserved

jacknews 3y ago

I designed and made a 'cheapscope' out of PVC pipe, 3d printed parts, and cheap aliexpress 76mm mirror, mounted on a camera tripod. It works well enough for the moon etc, and, as I'm based in a developing country, many people have never seen the sky except with the naked eye, so the gasps and oohs, etc are priceless. I had intended to document and open-source the whole thing, but was busy at the time, and the PLA prints have since completely disintegrated in the hot humidity, lol. Maybe I'll get back to it again, with PET or nylon this time.

chantepierre 3y ago
That's very nice. All DIY efforts to make visual astronomy more accessible are more than welcome as consumer products are priced for the global market.

geocrasher 3y ago

Cool! I have built Hadley, a 114mm Newtonian that is mostly 3d printed. https://miscdotgeek.com/3d-printing-the-hadley-114mm-newtonian-telescope/ https://miscdotgeek.com/3d-printing-the-hadley-114mm-newtoni... It's done now, and has produced some nice images, but I need to spend more time with it to get planetary images etc.

chantepierre 3y ago
Nice, Maff (& people who joined him) has done wonders to spread low-cost capable scopes with this project ! Best of luck for your future sessions

passion__desire 3y ago

Get normal public involved in your adventures like this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE

chantepierre 3y ago
That's my ultimate goal, an itinerant astronomy car to go in villages where there are no astronomy clubs. I also started teaching the few things I know about mirror making to my club and whoever asks. I'm building public-compatible stuff now that I have my own stuff that is quite delicate to handle, after a few public nights where children grab onto a high-end eyepiece... The 16.5" will be a very rugged scope to fulfill this purpose. I think John Dobson's approach to telescopes is the ultimate one, that is, the value of a scope is the number of people who looked through it
- dekhn 3y ago
  Instead of an eyepiece, i strongly recommend having a DSLR or other camera attached and showing the display on a nice screen. It makes it soooo much easier (although, it doesn't work great for nebulas or other faint objects). I've had a parent sort of utter "wait... we're looking at the moons... of jupiter... in real.... time?"

sdenton4 3y ago

I've got an unfinished 8-inch mirror that I spent a month of evenings grinding... Someday I'll get around to polishing and building out a cargo-bike-collapsable structure for it. A cool thing about DIY telescopes: You can get better results than a commercial mirror, because you can turn your time into quality at a rate which is not economically feasible for manufacturing.