3D printed telescope

[Knight of Clear Skies]

If we're excluding the mount, I've just been pondering on how I'd achieve the same ends (ie. putting the RPi camera in a telescope) using off the shelf parts combined with a 3d printer whilst trying to stay within the £100 budget.  At the moment I think it's probably one of the Skywatcher 76 dobs and 3d print an adaptor to put the camera in the focuser tube.  If we said £53 for the RPi and camera, the scope is available for £40 to £45 leaving a few quid over for materials.  You'd have a finder and a couple of eyepieces into the bargain too and unless you needed some form of tracking then you could avoid the additional mount altogether.

An advantage of that setup is that it could be used for visual as well. In my experience people tend to be more wowed by a view of the Moon through even a modest scope than by lunar images. There are some other nice options available - a superzoom bridge camera or even an old 2nd hand DSLR and M42 400mm lens might be had for £100.

I think putting a camera in place of a secondary has more promise for DSO imaging, from a technical point of view I can't see the advantage for lunar imaging. Replacing the secondary gives a fast optical system, an important consideration for DSO imaging but not for lunar or planetary. The big expense of DSO imaging is the mount for accurate tracking, especially when guiding is required. Could a cheap low read-noise camera on a fast optical system collect enough data with short exposures to work well without guiding, bringing down the mount costs?  

[Roy Challen]

Surely if they're Astrologers they can save themselves a fortune by forseeing when a really cheap telescope will come up on gumtree from someone who doesn't know what they are selling, and snapping it up for a pittance?

Although why they would want a telescope I don't know...

So they can see that the planets have no influence on us!