Telescope with own hands: photo, diagram, video

How to make a telescope with your own hands Probably everyone in his life at least a little interested in astronomy and wanted to have with him a tool that would allow us to look closer at the riddles of the starry sky.

Well, if you have binoculars or a telescopetrumpet - even in such weak astronomical instruments you can already admire the beauty of the starry sky. But if your interest in this science is strong enough, and access to the instrument is not at all, or if the tools available do not satisfy your curiosity, you will still need a more powerful tool - telescope, which can be done independently at home. In this article, a step-by-step instruction with a photo and video on how to make a telescope with your own hands.

Telescope factory manufacturing will cost youis quite expensive, so its purchase is appropriate only if you want to engage in astronomy on an amateur or professional level. But first, in order to acquire the initial knowledge and skills, and finally, to understand whether astronomy is really yours, you should try to make a telescope with your own hands.

In many children's encyclopedias and other scientific publications you can find a description of the manufacture of the simplest telescope. Already such a tool will allow you to see craters on the moon, the disk of Jupiter and its four companions, the disk and rings of Saturn, the sickle of Venus, some large and bright star clusters and nebulae, stars, invisible to the naked eye. Immediately it is worth noting that such a telescope can not pretend to image quality in comparison with telescopes of factory manufacturing as a result of the discrepancy of the purpose of the optics to be used.

The telescope device

To start with - a bit of theory. The telescope, as in the photo, consists of two optical nodes - lens and eyepiece. The lens collects light from objects, from itsdiameter directly depends on the maximum magnification of the telescope and how weak objects can be observed. The eyepiece increases the image formed by the lens, followed by the eye of the person in the optical circuit.

There are several types of optical telescopes, two of the most common - refractor and reflector. The reflective lens is represented by a mirror, andrefractor - a system of lenses. At home, making a mirror for a reflector is a laborious and precise process, which is not something everyone can do. Unlike a reflector, inexpensive lenses for a refractor are not hard to get in an optician's shop.

Increase The telescope is equal to the ratio Fob / Fock (Fob is the focal length of the lens, Foc is the eyepiece). Our telescope will have a maximum magnification of about 50x.

$Scheme of a refractory telescope factory-made$

To make a lens you need to purchasea lens lens bag with a power of 1 dioptre, corresponding to a focal length of 1 m. Such blanks typically have a diameter of about 70 mm. Unfortunately, eyeglass lenses made in the form of meniscuses, are poorly suited to such an application, but you can stop on them. If you have a long-focus biconvex lens, it is recommended to use it.

Eyepiece can serve as an ordinary magnifying glass (magnifier) of a small diameter of about 30 mm. A good option may also be an eyepiece from a microscope.

As housing you can use two tubes of thick paper,one short - about 20 cm (ocular unit), the second about 1 m (the main part of the tube). A short tube is inserted into the long one. The body can be made either from a wide sheet of paper, or from a roll of wallpaper, folded into a tube in several layers and glued with PVA glue. The number of layers is selected manually until the pipe becomes sufficiently stiff. The inner diameter of the main pipe should be equal to the diameter of the spectacle lens.

The lens (eyeglass lens) is fixed in the first tube with a convex side outward with the help of a rim-rings of diameter equal to the diameter of the lens and a thickness of about 10 mm. Immediately after the lens is installed disk - diaphragm with a hole in the center of a diameter of 25 - 30 mm - thisIt is necessary to reduce the significant distortion of the image obtained by a single lens. This will affect the reduction in the amount of light collected by the lens. The lens is mounted closer to the edge of the main tube.

The eyepiece is mounted in the ocular unit closer toits edge. To do this, you will need to make a cardboard holder for the eyepiece. It will consist of a cylinder with an equal-sized eyepiece. This cylinder will be attached to the inner side of the tube by two disks of diameter equal to the inner diameter of the ocular unit with an aperture equal in diameter to the eyepiece.

Focus will be made by changingthe distance between the lens and the eyepiece, due to the movement of the ocular unit in the main tube, and the fixation will be due to friction. Focusing is convenient for bright and large objects, such as the moon, bright stars, nearby buildings.

When building a telescope, it is necessary to take into account that the lens and eyepiece should be parallel to each other, and their centers should be strictly on the same line.

You can also experiment with the diameteraperture opening and find the optimum. If you use a lens with an optical power of 0.6 diopters (the focal length is 1 / 0.6, which is about 1.7 m) - this will increase the aperture opening and increase the magnification, but increase the pipe length to 1.7 m.

It is always worth remembering that you can not look at the sun in a telescope or any other optical device. This will instantly damage your eyesight.

So, you got acquainted with the principle of constructionsimple telescope and can now make it yourself. There are other variants of the telescope from spectacle lenses or telephoto lenses. Any details of manufacturing, as well as other information you are interested in, you can find on the websites and forums on astronomy and telescoping. This is a very wide area, it is done by both beginners and professional astronomers.

And remember, if you just plunge into the unknown to youearlier the world of astronomy - and at your desire it will show you a lot of treasures of the starry sky, will teach the technique of observation, photographing of completely diverse objects and many other things that you did not even guess.

Clear sky to you!