3D printed 150 mm f/8 Newtonian telescope
Description
This is very much a work in progress, I'm uploading now just in case anyone else wants to make improvements or change the optical design. This is based around experimental printed optics, if you plan to use glass optics then you can change the f ratio and tube length to suit your needs. I wanted to make a telescope that is entirely 3D printed just to see if it's possible. This is including the optics too but I need to try some things first, the challenges here are to see if PLA (or something else) will even hold it's figure, and then how to coat it as I'm not sure they will survive a trip in a vacuum chamber. If you want a working telescope I'd say get glass and make regular mirrors for it. Such small mirrors are ok to be fixed with silicone adhesive. The optical design is 150 mm f/8. This is to make the telescope super easy to manufacture. All the parts fit on a regular size printer. The reason for f/8 is so that the mirror doesn't need to be parabolised as a simple spherical figure will suffice. I'm also busy with a very simple miniature mirror grinding machine to print and use to make these optics either from glass or plastic. The tube is incredibly wasteful of time and filament to print. You'll probably be better looking for a cardboard tube and adjusting the parts to suit, then print only the secondary mirror assembly and the rear of the telescope. The interesting part of the tube segments is that they are printed with baffles over the entire length. The focusing is done with a very simple rotating helical focuser. You may need to adjust your printer, with the 3D models I uploaded it works very well, it needs to be just a little tight so that a dab of grease makes it run nicely. In the pipeline is a mount for this telescope to use either manually or with motors. Purchased parts - 150 mm diameter optics set of choice, or 150 mm diameter x 15 mm thick borosilicate blanks (x2, one for mirror, one as a tool) & grinding/polishing materials 44 or 50 mm diagonal mirror (x1) - better to just purchase this M4 x 60 DIN 912 Cap head allen bolts (x4) M6 x 30 DIN 912 Cap head allen bolts (x4) M4 nuts (x4) M6 nuts (x4)
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