Someone needs to invent...

[nicks90]

whilst i was outside last night having a quick peek at the stars between the clouds - i had a brain wave inspiration for a new eyepiece design! Going to patent it before anyone nicks my idea

Wouldnt it be good if someone could build an eyepiece that consisted of a 2" adaptor that plugs into the focusser on the scope and feeds into a 5 foot long fibre optic tube to a standard 2" ep holder with focussing ring? That way you could get your scope lined up, engage the ra motor and then sit down on your nice comfy reclining deck chair and be able to insert whatever ep into the end of the fibre optic tube and focus whilst being a completely lazy sod chilling out with a nice tot of double malt!

yeah, you could use a cctv camera and 10" tft on your lap - but thats just not the same as the 'actual' photons from distant objects hitting your retina. Plus it would solve all the awkward bending over and positioning your head at the ep - instead you relax your head against the chairs cushion and bring the ep to the right position in front of your eye. Much more relaxing!

any other superb inventions in your brains that would make observing more glamorous/lazy/easier out there?

cheers

Nick

[Mzungu]

make that tube a bit longer and you could sit in your lounge with your slippers on...

[starnut]

Or make the butler stand out in the cold and report back what he's seen

[michaelmorris]

Nice idea. However, there may be a problem with your plans to patent this design - you've just put the design in the public domain before applying for the patent!

[Bart]

How about a 'World Switch'? When you go out at night you could just flick this and the world would be plunged into total darkness. This would probably need to be beside the 'Hospital Switch' which you would need when you attempt to move around without your headtorch, becasue you know you own back garden so well......

Barry

[nicks90]

How about a 'World Switch'? When you go out at night you could just flick this and the world would be plunged into total darkness.Barry

narr - thats what my army of nanobots are for - creeping into the streetlights and temporarily unplugging them until i have finished my lazy observing on my nice recliner.

[nicks90]

Nice idea. However, there may be a problem with your plans to patent this design - you've just put the design in the public domain before applying for the patent!

yeah, but if i could afford to go through the patent process, i could afford a better scope than a celestron 130!!!

Call it a freeby from my own personal store of christmas spirit to the community.

Nick

[Budding Star Gazer]

i'd like someone to invent an off switch for the girlfriend.

[Jonimac25]

Someone has invented an off switch, it's called marriage!

[atmenterprises]

Someone has invented an off switch, it's called marriage!

I'm not touching that one with a 10-meter focal length!

[Photosbykev]

Someone has invented an off switch, it's called marriage!

Best quote of the year and probably your last :)

[J_M_Franklin]

Actually, the OP idea is not that far fetched, it would take some working out, but if you had a CCD camera or a light multiplier mounted on the telescope then it would be able to channel that light into a fibre optic that could be used to feed a mount with various eyepieces in...but if you took this to the logical end game, then mounted on this would be another CCD camera that would view the image from the scope via an eyepiece and then feed this image to the computer. This was you get the image on the PC but via an eyepiece as if you were observing at the scope itself, and that would be excellent because normally with a camera you cannot change the magnification of an object...

[nicks90]

one other thing I would like someone to invent...

a bluetooth dongle that attaches to goto mounts and guiding software for IOS and Android. Then instead of using a laptop or synscan handset plugged in to your mount for goto and guiding, you could use your mobile phone.

[atmenterprises]

one other thing I would like someone to invent...

a bluetooth dongle that attaches to goto mounts and guiding software for IOS and Android. Then instead of using a laptop or synscan handset plugged in to your mount for goto and guiding, you could use your mobile phone.

We're halfway there. EQTooth gives you the Bluetooth part but it's still based on using a laptop. I own one and recommend it btw.

[J_M_Franklin]

one other thing I would like someone to invent...

a bluetooth dongle that attaches to goto mounts and guiding software for IOS and Android. Then instead of using a laptop or synscan handset plugged in to your mount for goto and guiding, you could use your mobile phone.

On a similar vein it would be good if manufacturers would write some programs for PC's that replicated the handsets that plug in to GOTO scope so we could plug PC's, Laptops and even Tablets straight into them and not worry about the rather flaky hand controllers...

[jonathan]

Goggles that automatically adjust to lighting conditions quickly, turning red and more opaque when confronted with bright lights, clearing quickly when going into the darkness. Some sort of flip hinge or clip-on arrangement for easy use / storage on the head might also be good, maybe built-in red-light torch by the side of each eye, too.