Project Telescope

Overview

In the summer break after my 10th boards, I took up the ambitious project of making a fully automated, goto-tracking telescope from scratch. In my first telescope I had used ready-made optics and an old telescope mount that I got from my school. After using it for a few months, I realised that it was very hard to locate distant and faint celestial objects from within city limits. Also it was difficult to keep the telescope aimed at a particular object when using high magnification. This was because of the Earth's rotation. At high magnification, the Earth's seemingly slow rotation(1/1440 rpm!) makes stars and planets zoom right across the field of view in a matter of a few seconds. So, I decided to make a tracking, goto telescope.

There were several stages to this project.

Firstly, making the optics. I wanted to learn how to make a telescopic mirror and so decided to use the mirror that I would make. To do so, I went to a 6-day training camp to IUCAA, Pune, India. There I was instructed by Mr. Tushar Purohit. He taught me how to grind a mirror blank to get a perfectly smooth spherical shape and showed me how to polish a mirror to prepare it for aluminizing. 

Secondly, the telescope mount. I wanted to make a sturdy mount that was easy to operate and so went for a dobsonian design. This is a form of an altitude-azimuth mount made popular by John Dobson (hence the name dobsonian). I made several modifications to the original design to incorporate the gears and motors required for automated movement.

Third step was the automation. Here ‘Automation’ means that I should be able use the telescope hands-free, with very high precision. I can enter coordinates of a celestial body and the telescope will automatically point to it. The idea was to have a system that is easy to setup and use and also one that would not prevent manual operation. So I used two stepper motors for the two axes which are controlled using an Arduino microprocessor. The Arduino microprocessor is a versatile programmable board with several applications. It can communicate with mobile devices(smart phones, tablets, laptops etc.) as a serial monitor. So I have used a smart phone to receive the coordinates. Once it is correctly positioned, the telescope tracks the movement of the stars, so that they remain in the field of view.

As this is an elaborate project, I will explain each part in detail in separate posts.

Stay tuned for the latest posts. 

The Love Of Science

Hello to the world (from under the rock)

I was always curious and fascinated by science. But it was in the eighth grade that topics like Current and Electricity, Ions and Electrolysis and Life Processes of a Cell sparked my interest in science. Trying to understand these processes without having to wait for "higher classes" and then explaining them to my friends was the beginning. I soon started reading up on varied things like transistors, electronics, blackholes, relativity, light, photosynthesis and DNA and I loved it. My friends and I discussed everything that we read about. And when I had read about something that my friends did not know, explaining it to them, having them question what I was saying and later clearing their doubts really clarified my own doubts and enforced these concepts in my mind. For instance, several times when I read something I took some theories, concepts or ideas for granted, because at the time they seemed obvious. However, when I started explaining the same thing to someone else, the smallest of things that I had taken for granted seemed like pretty big assumptions. Then, I had to re-convince myself as well as the listener why that thing was so obvious, and that is easier said than done. These debates and discussions strengthened my reasoning ability and forced me to think and deliberate. Around the same time,  I read popular scientific books such as A Brief History Of Time, The Theory Of Everything, For The Love Of Physics, Why Does e=mc2 and so on. I also read a lot of Wikipedia articles on physics and biology and I still do. Wikipedia is a wondrous medium of knowledge for anyone and everyone interested. In fact, after school, Wikipedia has taught me most of what I know.

This was how I started enjoying - infact loving - science.

Hello world

(From under the rock)

This blog will mostly be a record of my science experiments and projects. I will also explain (to the best of my abilities) scientific phenomena, recent discoveries, and the ways of the world.