Homemade image intensifiers

[athornett]

ATM Image intensified eyepieces

The commercial versions of these eyepieces cost £1500 ($2000) upwards.......here Damian and I describe how we made one for £50 ($80) - this price was for the cascade generation I tube we used - that price was when it was purchased several years ago.

The main differences that we are aware of between the commercial versions and ours are:-

(i) Theirs has a higher resolution - not that we noticed at the eyepiece!

(ii) Ours has more distortion of the periphery of the field of view - oh well you can't have everything!

(iii) Theirs are a lot lighter...no getting away from that - our version requires a sturdy telescope/mount and 2 inch focuser.

What we are less sure of is:-

(i) Any difference in brightness? Possibly but the image intensifer we used is a 3 stage generation 1 intensifer that gives pretty bright images

(ii) Fun level - ours delivers on the fun side

(iii) Both image intensifers can be used with an SLR lens without the scope - probably the best bit

(iv) Ours gives you the enjoyment and sense of acheivement of having made it yourself

(v) Price difference - this is one aspect of ATM where there is still a really big difference in price between the ATM version and the commercial version!

Please note we accept no liability for damage or injury incurred from following our instructions (its just what we did) and we make no guarentee that this will work for you. Please let us know if you find a better way of constructing your eyepiece so we can update this website. You will need to source components - a difference image intensifer should work but you will need to modify the instructions. Plus - please note neither of us have had a chance to compare our version with the commercial versions.

We hope you have great fun making your image intensifed eyepiece!

You can access how we made this scope by clicking on this link: https://roslistonastronomy.uk/16065-2 where you can download instructions - I will attach main file below but note there is extra stuff on the link.

Andy

Instructions-making-image-intensified-eyepiece-2009.pdf

[athornett]

To give you some idea of what this homemade image intensified eyepiece is capable of here are some photos of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters taken HAND-HELD with Samsung S7 phone at the eyepiece on a 10" Orion Dobsonian telescope last Saturday 2/2/2019. Amongst the photos below are M81, Crab nebula, Hubble Variable Nebula, the Eyes Galaxies at the end of Markarian's Chain, Starfish Cluster in Auriga. Labels for photos available on our astro club blog https://roslistonastronomy.uk/observing-log-2-2-2019-1845-3-2-2019-0330-damian-and-andrew-photos-taken-through-the-eyepiece

Andy

 

[athornett]

NB Also M42 and M13 above

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, athornett said:

The main differences that we are aware of between the commercial versions and ours are:-

(iv) Blue-white vs green image:

[GavStar]

Very ingenious and interesting ?

I think there is another key advantage to the commercial tubes:

(v) ability to use narrowband H alpha filters to view nebulae

 

[PeterW]

Don’t knock green!! I believe the cascade tubes cost a lot more, the supply  just be running down. What “eyepiece” did you use  to view the tube screen end?? I used a loupe lens and I am not sure it was best (field of view seems quite small). I got 3D printed parts and knocked up a c-mob t lens adapted unit, usually use it with a 25mm cctv lens. Maybe we need to test it against the “other options” @GavStar??

I was debating selling my cascade build as it doesn’t get a lot of use.

if any of you are down in the London  area you’d be welcome to come and have a look with the lighter weight options. What are your skies like (SQM?) maybe we could pay you a visit one day.

PEterW