Design your own Newton telescope

[Astrofriend]

Have you ever thought about why your Newton telescope has the dimension it has, primary and secondary mirror, focuser, f/number and so on?

I stumbled in to this tool Newt-Web that Kenneth H. Slater has developed further from Dale Keller's code. It's an online design tool page for Newton telescope.

It's a very intuitive page where you can put in some figures about a Newton telescope that you want to built and get back information about it's performance. It give a ray trace and important data back. From that you get understanding when a Newton telescope design is good or not.

I have done some test and written it down on my homepage so you can see the different steps and my comments:
http://astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/project-design-newton-telescope/project-design-newton-telescope.html

I already know some of the physics and math, but never got to know so much in short time what happens when you change a parameter and what happens inside the telescope. Beware, I'm still in the learning process and not all what I have written is fully correct.

I recommend you to take a look at Newt-Web page even if you never will built a telescope, you get knowledge and understanding that could be very valuable when you shall buy a Newton telescope.

/Lars

[laowhoo]

OMG, flashbacks from the wayback machine. I lived in that program for about a week before ordering our first bits of square aluminum tube. What a joy. Thx for the reminder, and gotta agree that it's a must see for anybody contemplating a Newt/Dob, especially since it's just so fun to use. Hence the bump.

[Gina]

I have a book on telescope design

[dweller25]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

I have a book on telescope design

??? Do you mean you wrote it ???

It wouldn't surprise me

[Gina]

I'm afraid not