Testing a telescope

[tjmucbug]

Hello,
Thank you for your help in advance. For my project I designed and built a new style of telescope. I have tested it by viewing and taking pictures of a building 1 mile away. I also viewed and took pictures of the moon and sun. Then I found online information about the Ronchi test and used an image of a black and white grating so I viewed the image and took pictures of a black and white grating to determine distortion. I have also done the calculations to determine magnification of my telescope with two different power eyepiece magnifications that I made. My question is " are there any other tests that I can do or information that I can gather to further test my telescope or to show it's performance ? I want to make my project REALLY great so I would like to know if there is anything else that I can do ? I have have seen the idea about viewing the location of the moons of Jupiter to determine the orbits of one or more of the moons. The problem is that I live in the north east and nights without clouds are few and far between now! Thank you for any suggestions you can give me.

[Goldenzenith]

Hi tjmucbug,

First of all, congratulations on building a telescope! It sounds like you've been enjoying it a great deal, which is absolutely wonderful. It's also always helpful to look for ways to improve what you have, so I hope this post will be of some use to you. I'm unsure whether you want similar tests or as many tests as possible, but I found something called the Hartmann Test for telescopes. It's similar to the Ronchi test: http://www.salt.ac.za/iq/the-salt-image ... lescope-i/. If you're looking for more, take a look at this PDF: http://www.nicholoptical.co.uk/The%20Te ... Optics.pdf. Even if you don't end up using something in there, maybe you'll learn something new, if you haven't seen it already! Good luck and keep having fun!

[tjmucbug]

Thank you so much for getting back to me. I think the Hartmann test sounds just perfect. I have been having a great time with it! In fact my teacher wants me to enter it in the invention convention and I might apply for a patent on my idea. I made a "modified reflector/refractor telescope. I will let you know how it works out.

[Goldenzenith]

Glad I could help! And good luck with both the convention and the patent! I wish you the best!