I would go with something like an old Meade ETX with autostar and just print some of the eyepieces you’ll find that have lens kits you can buy. The eyepieces are nice and the prints are easy. An actual scope is a tricky project to dial in and the longer focal lengths are hard to use in practice. Something like an ETX60 is reasonably cheap and while you’ll barely see more than dot with 3-4 tiny specs of Jupiter’s moons or the haze of the Orion nebula, they are quite easy to find in practice. Doing initial alignment is also easy and forgiving. That’s just my take. I also wouldn’t mess with any of the phone camera adaptors. I ended up making my own that had 6 axis alignment, but the bubble lens and software compensation on most phones makes them mostly useless through and additional lens stack of an eyepiece.
Comment on Upgrading our folding wagon to carry 100 pounds worth of kids
IMALlama@lemmy.world 10 months agoWe’re way more utilitarian than that given our still pretty young kids, but maybe next year. For now it will remain “the wagon”, lol. I’m really considering printing them a Hadley telescope for Christmas. They’re both aware of planets and space, and know that space proves and rovers are a thing, but it’s all a bit abstract to them right now.
j4k3@lemmy.world 10 months ago
IMALlama@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thanks for chiming in on the scope. Are you saying that building one from someone else’s plans might be a bit of a slog?
When they’re older, if they’re still interested in astronomy, we’ll probably do as you suggest. Honestly, it’s less about the usability scope and more about assembling one with the kid right now. I am trying to get them interested in tinkering and making things while they’re young and impressionable. We live in the middle of a large metro with tons and tons of light pollution. We’re also on the west side of the timezone, so the sun is down way past bedtime for 2/3 of the year.
Another thing on the list to print for Christmas is a pendulum clock. Our oldest likes “analog looking” watches already, although he’s too young and rambunctious to have a mechanical watch. A wall clock will do nicely though.
j4k3@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Optics are very precision oriented. I’ve messed with designing for optics and found it to be very challenging to make anything effective. It is not the kind of project I would build from scratch on my own without a baseline to compare the scope to. I think a Hadley is more like a second scope built for fun type of side project. I think you’d be better off with something like this: www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/L14481.html (no affiliation)
thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I hear you-- Just saying, once you get a few kids in there, it’s going to be four wheels carrying some very sophisticated sensor and communications equipment. Sounds like a rover to me. Still early in R&D though, I get it.
IMALlama@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ha, totally. Give it a year or two!