Software for designing telescopes?

[pipnina]

I've taken a reasonable interest in Off-axis scope designs and have one in my head (similar to the yolo design I think) but without software to visualise it for me, I will never know if it will work well, poorly or at all!

There must be some program that exists somewhere to facilitate scope design (and an interesting design at that). Does anyone here know of one? (that's preferably free)

Cheers,

    ~pip

[Ajohn]

There used to be a program called winspot specifically aimed at tilted component telescopes about. Some time with google might find it.

Oslo LT is free but will have limitations on the number of surfaces that it can handle.

I posted a link to another application in a recent thread concerning cassegrain telescopes. Googling PointSpread should bring it up.

John

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[pipnina]

There used to be a program called winspot specifically aimed at tilted component telescopes about. Some time with google might find it.

Oslo LT is free but will have limitations on the number of surfaces that it can handle.

I posted a link to another application in a recent thread concerning cassegrain telescopes. Googling PointSpread should bring it up.

John

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Hello, I'm afraid I can't find "Pointspread" via Google, it only shows a bunch of websites that want to explain how to bet on football results XD

Is this the first software you mentioned? It's the only reference I've found for it: http://winspot.softwaresea.com/Windows-software-download/winspot

[Ajohn]

PointSpread is here

http://www.busack-medial.de/download.htm

I can't get winspot to download from that link. The application is shown here under tilted component design but the link which is the original one is dead

http://stellafane.org/misc/links.html#TiltedDesign

Your best option might be to search "weird telescopes" and hope some one has archived the software.  This one has just archived the top level.

http://www.eyes-on-the-skies.org/shs/weird.htm

 If you do find it please post a link.

John

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[pipnina]

PointSpread is here

http://www.busack-medial.de/download.htm

I can't get winspot to download from that link. The application is shown here under tilted component design but the link which is the original one is dead

http://stellafane.org/misc/links.html#TiltedDesign

Your best option might be to search "weird telescopes" and hope some one has archived the software.  This one has just archived the top level.

http://www.eyes-on-the-skies.org/shs/weird.htm

 If you do find it please post a link.

John

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Cheers! I'll see what i can learn from these!

[Ajohn]

I just sorted through an  old disks and found I had forgot this one

http://hdru.com/linzik/index.html

I also found winspot and have attached it.  It's important to recognise how to zoom the spot diagram otherwise some one might conclude that they have an excellent design. There is one design that just shows a dot no matter how far it is zoomed or how wide the viewing angle is - pity it has such a very limited field of view - the software doesn't account for mirrors getting in the way of the light path.

It's a pity this app can't be archived some where permanently on the web really. The examples include a lot of tct telescopes.

Winspot_0.95d.zip

John

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