Revealed: Images of moon are first ever to be captured by DIY Pikon telescope - and you could PRINT your own at home for £100

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Revealed: Images of moon are first ever to be captured by DIY Pikon telescope - and you could PRINT your own at home for £100

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Monday, September 22, 2014 Label:

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Incredible images showing the cratered surface of the moon are the first ever to be taken with a 3D printed telescope.

The £100 ($160) Pikon is able to produce images with a quality equal to telescopes that cost ten times as much, according to its designers.

And with plans available to download online, anyone can create the telescope themselves – as long as they own a 3D printer which costs at least £400 ($650).

Incredible images showing the surface of the moon are the first ever to be taken with a 3D printed telescope

Physicist Mark Wrigley, one of Pikon's creator, said he believed the telescope would be a 'game changer,' making telescopes available to the general public.

Pikon uses a £25 ($40) Raspberry Pi camera module and is based on Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope design.

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The design involves placing a concave mirror to form an image of whatever the telescope is focused on directly onto the Pi camera sensor.

The camera is mounted onto components created by 3D printing and, due to it small size, can sit directly in front of the mirror.

The telescope has a magnification of times 160, which means that on a cloudless night it will be capable of detailed lunar observation as well as galaxies, star clusters and some planetary observation.

£100 ($160) Pikon is able to produce images with a quality equal to telescopes that cost ten times as much

With plans available to download online, anyone can create the telescope themselves. This is one of the first images to be taken using the 3D printed telescope

The Pikon telescope has a magnification of times 160, which means that on a cloudless night it will be capable of detailed lunar observation as well as galaxies, star clusters and some planetary observation

NASA LAUNCHES FIRST EVER 3D PRINTER TO SPACE

A SpaceX cargo ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday, carrying the first 3D printer for astronauts in orbit.

Dragon should reach the space station Tuesday. It's the fifth station shipment for the California-based SpaceX.

The space station-bound 3D printer was developed by Made in Space, another California company. It's sturdier than Earthly models to withstand the stresses of launch, and meets Nasa's strict safety standards.

The space agency envisions astronauts one day cranking out spare parts as needed. For now, it's a technology demonstrator, with a bigger and better model to follow next year.

The physicists unveiled the ambitious project, called Disruptive Technology Astronomy, as part of the University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind.

'We've called this project Disruptive Technology Astronomy because we hope it will be a game changer, just like all Disruptive Technologies,' said Mark Wrigley, former physicist and member of the Institute of Physics.

'We hope that one day this will be seen on a par with the famous Dobsonian "pavement" telescopes, which allowed hobbyists to see into the night skies for the first time.

'This is all about democratising technology, making it cheap and readily available to the general public.'

The telescope uses a £25 ($40) Raspberry Pi camera module and is based on Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope design. The physicists unveiled the project, called Disruptive Technology Astronomy, as part of the University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind