You can build it yourself at home if you want

Sep 20, 2014 09:16 GMT  ·  By

Telescopes need very precise assembly, and parts that fit well together, otherwise the light spectrum won't be focalized properly and you get a blurry mess instead of a close-up image of the night sky (or your neighbor's yard, if you like to spy in your spare time).

This is why even the smallest telescopes cost a pretty penny. Indeed, some of the best consumer models, with a magnification of 150-200 times, can cost upwards of €1,000 / $1,600.

Now, though, you might just be able to create a good telescope yourself. You see, researchers from the University of Sheffield have revealed how the components of a telescope may be 3D printed.

Behold the Pikon

They call their project Pikon. In a nutshell, the product is a telescope with a magnification of 160 yet featuring a price of €100 / $160. Despite that, it works just as well as models that cost ten times as much, as we said before.

One of the inventors, physicist Mark Wrigley, intends for the Pikon to become a viable tool for younger scientists, or those who happen to be down on their luck.

Admittedly, the telescope isn't all that fancy, but it's not supposed to be. The Newtonian design has been working just fine for centuries, and there's no sense in breaking what's not broken.

Newton was the first person to create a reflective telescope, in case you were unclear on the reason for the naming of the contraption.

Before 1668, all telescopes used normal lenses. Newton invented a telescope that uses mirrors to project a larger image onto a small “dot.”

Interestingly, though, the Pikon has a camera module, an infrared camera taken from a Raspberry Pi credit card-sized computer, of all things.

The camera is mounted in front of the mirror on the end of the telescope components. Thus, the mirror focuses the image onto the camera sensor. It presumably allows the pictures to be directly viewed on a screen (though you might need to get creative with a bit of wiring), in addition to the actual view port.

How to build a Pikon

It's not quite clear yet, because the instructions haven't been published. It should happen sooner rather than later though, on Thingiverse. In the meantime, you might want to buy some lenses, mirrors and Raspberry Pi, since those aren't things you can 3D print.

Astronomy has been the source of many dreams over the centuries, as well as ideas for science fiction books and movies. Giving people the ability to make a telescope unaided will surely lead to more.