Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

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.

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!

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.

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