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Gadgets and gizmos you would like to see in furture for Astronomy!.?


Supernova74

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A very light hearted subject for members on Astro lounge 

Anyway it would be nice for imagers and visual Amateur Astronomers alike is to share on this post  what would be an ideal gadget or gizmo that hasn’t been necessarily been invented yet that thay would find usefull to either advance in Astronomy or perhaps  be a revolution in the making for exsample for there telescope,mount,eyepeice or accessories!.?

i would find it very intriguing to share your views and opinions 

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thank you mark that would definitely be time efficient 

Meade once produced the RCX400 collomation was controllable throught the goto hand set apparently considered the best sct cassagrain ever made to the  Amateur Astronomer 

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Augmented reality glasses (eg Epson) with a startracking sensor that can be linked to sky safari or similar to identify and give info on what you’re actually looking at. Maybe built into binoculars or a wa scope ep

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7 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Augmented reality glasses (eg Epson) with a startracking sensor that can be linked to sky safari or similar to identify and give info on what you’re actually looking at. Maybe built into binoculars or a wa scope ep

I quite like that idea, virtual hand control for searching and other options. 

For greater accuracy you could link to a computer for polar alignment or plate solving.

 

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Skywatcher do a WiFi wand star pointer wIth laser..then your scope will goto desired object great outreach device I can imagine however like to see it perform on deep sky small objects.in practice definitely sounds like a gadget gizmo get frustrated with and bored with quickly.then go back to the conventional way besides I don,t remember Harry Potter useing one at hogwarts.

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I would actually like to see the introduction of technologies already in existence, to the amateur astronomy community.

 

Astronomy is all about contrast and we have black paint, knife edge baffles, some flock their scopes. But none of that match the light absorbing qualities of VantaBlack. It’s about time it was used in telescopes.

 

Canon have developed Blue Spectrum Refractive Optics which is an organic compound which allows for better control of deep blue light reducing longitudinal chromatic aberration. Would be interesting to see that applied to refractors.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

Astronomy is all about contrast and we have black paint, knife edge baffles, some flock their scopes. But none of that match the light absorbing qualities of VantaBlack. It’s about time it was used in telescopes.

 

The use of VantaBlack in eyepiece internals/ Mak baffle tubes and scope/camera internals could be game changing, I wonder if a Newt that had all its internals and spider vanes covered would show diffraction spikes?

Alan

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1 minute ago, Alien 13 said:

The use of VantaBlack in eyepiece internals/ Mak baffle tubes and scope/camera internals could be game changing, I wonder if a Newt that had all its internals and spider vanes covered would show diffraction spikes?

Alan

Yes it would. It is the fact the vanes block the light that cause the diffraction  pattern. 

Regards Andrew 

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8 hours ago, andrew s said:

Yes it would. It is the fact the vanes block the light that cause the diffraction  pattern. 

Regards Andrew 

There's a thread over on CN that advocates leaving spider vanes polished metal- the theory being that black body radiation can actually lead the blades to cool to below ambient temp causing a thermal gradient and increasing diffraction! Does that sound likely to you Andrew?

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25 minutes ago, markse68 said:

There's a thread over on CN that advocates leaving spider vanes polished metal- the theory being that black body radiation can actually lead the blades to cool to below ambient temp causing a thermal gradient and increasing diffraction! Does that sound likely to you Andrew?

I don't  think it would impact the diffraction directly. However the vains and mirror support will add to the seeing within the tube. Only the upper and lower parts of the vains "see" the sky (lower via the main mirror) the rest face the walls. As the heat loss depends on the temperature gradient as well as the surface emissivity the main heat loss and source of seeing is, I suspect, the main mirror.

Regards Andrew 

PS  if you provide a link I will look at what they say.

Edited by andrew s
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1 hour ago, andrew s said:

I don't  think it would impact the diffraction directly. However the vains and mirror support will add to the seeing within the tube. Only the upper and lower parts of the vains "see" the sky (lower via the main mirror) the rest face the walls. As the heat loss depends on the temperature gradient as well as the surface emissivity the main heat loss and source of seeing is, I suspect, the main mirror.

Regards Andrew 

PS  if you provide a link I will look at what they say.

There's some discussion in several threads but here's one which links to a 1949 piece by Andre Couder

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/545953-are-curved-spider-vanes-better-and-if-so-why-are-they-not-standard-equipment/page-3

https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astrosurf.com%2Faltaz%2Feffetthermique_e.htm

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@markse68 an interesting read. Unfortunately, the translation gets a key word wrong but my wife helped out.

I think there are 3 things discussed. Stray light from off axis stars and polished vains. This is fairly obvious and not a good idea.

The increase in projected width of the vains as you go off axis. Again fairly obvious.

Increase in the apparant width of the spider due to a cold boundary layer forming on the vain. I have not considered or come across this before. I don't  know how real this is v normal tube seeing issues.

Some professional scopes use a T shaped spider to keep the projected area constant. It would also hide the boundary layer if there where one.

Regards Andrew 

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