telescope

94 Articles

PVC Pipe Turned DIY Digital Telescope

August 21, 2026 by 21 Comments

[Makestreme] had always wanted to own a nice telescope, but found that budget would not stretch to anything above a cheap model with a limited 50 mm aperture. Wanting a better view of the heavens, the way forward was obvious—it was time to build a better telescope, instead!

The build is based around a 114 mm diameter mirror sourced from Amazon. It’s assembled inside a length of 5-inch PVC pipe of just under a meter to suit the 900 mm focal length of the concave reflector. 3D printed components are used to mount the mirror and control its position for proper focus and collimation. Traditionally, a reflector based telescope would use a mirror and eyepiece to provide a view to the user. However, [Makestreme] built this as a smart telescope, instead integrating a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 at the focal point. It’s connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, running off an 18650 lithium-ion cell and a 5 V boost module for portability. The Pi runs a Python script that hosts a small web server allowing access to the live camera feed along with controls for brightness, exposure, and gain. [Makestreme] then uses apps like SkyMap and SkEye to help aim the telescope at astronomical elements of interest.

If you’ve ever wanted to explore the heavens from down on Earth, building your own telescope is a great way to start. A camera-based build like this one can be a bit simpler than traditional builds, too, without the fuss of having to install an eyepiece.

Continue reading “PVC Pipe Turned DIY Digital Telescope” →

Bortle-1 Skies in the heart of darkest Texas.

“Telescope Rancher” Is The Coolest Job You Didn’t Know Existed

June 22, 2026 by 38 Comments

McCulloch County, Texas, is smack dab in the middle of a very large state. We wouldn’t exactly call it the middle of nowhere, but given there’s so little light pollution it scores a 1 on the Bortle Scale, it’s not exactly the Big Apple, either. [Bray Falls] lives there, and has a job description we have become immediately jealous of: [Bray] is a telescope rancher.

Like the song goes, the stars really are big and bright at night deep in the heart of Texas. Not only is his ranch free of the light pollution that plagues more urban locations, central Texas is pretty dry, with only a few days of rain in any given month. That’s not great for agriculture, but it’s great for astronomy since it means the skies are most often cloud-free. Combine that with access to high-speed internet, and you have the makings of a telescope ranch.

Telescopes being let out of the barns for the night.
Image: Starfront Observatory

It’s brilliant in its simplicity: along with his own ‘scopes, [Bray]’s Starscope Observatory hosts hundreds of other people’s CCD equipped goto telescopes, all set up to be remote controlled over the information superhighway. On clear nights– which again, is most of them–the roofs roll off the telescope barns and observations can begin. Pad rental comes with tech support, too, so you don’t have to fly out to heart of darkest Texas if your mount gets jammed or you lose signal for any reason. That said, you should be sure to read the fine print before signing up, because said tech support probably doesn’t apply if you 3D printed your own ‘scope, or built your own mount.

That said, having gone to the effort of doing all that, would you really send your baby away to a farm upstate? Best reserve that for the old Celestron collecting dust in the corner. If you think we should be leaving these observations to the pros, be aware [Bray] has apparently discovered a very oddly-placed supernova remnant, 40 degrees off the galactic plane in Virgo. So this isn’t just a rewarding hobby; it’s still science, too.

Astronomy Live On Twitch

January 26, 2026 by 14 Comments

Although there are a few hobbies that have low-cost entry points, amateur astronomy is not generally among them. A tabletop Dobsonian might cost a few hundred dollars, and that is just the entry point for an ever-increasing set of telescopes, mounts, trackers, lasers, and other pieces of equipment that it’s possible to build or buy. [Thomas] is deep into astronomy now, has a high-quality, remotely controllable telescope, and wanted to make it more accessible to his friends and others, so he built a system that lets the telescope stream on Twitch and lets his Twitch viewers control what it’s looking at.

The project began with overcoming the $4000 telescope’s practical limitations, most notably an annoyingly short Wi-Fi range and closed software. [Thomas] built a wireless bridge with a Raspberry Pi to extend connectivity, and then built a headless streaming system using OBS Studio inside a Proxmox container. This was a major hurdle as OBS doesn’t have particularly good support for headless operation.

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3D Printing A Telescope Is Rewarding, Even If Not Always Cheaper

December 29, 2025 by 3 Comments

What can one expect from 3D printing an 8″ Newtonian telescope? [Molly Wakeling] shares her thoughts after doing exactly that. The performance was on par with any solid 8″ telescope, but in the end it wasn’t really any cheaper than purchasing a manufactured unit. Does that mean it wasn’t worth it? Not at all!

[Molly] makes the excellent observation that the process of printing and building one’s own telescope is highly educational and rewarding. Also, the end result is modular, user-serviceable, and customizable in a way that many commercial offerings can only dream of. It’s a great conversation starter with other enthusiasts, as well!

[Molly] printed the 203 Leavitt design (3d models available on Printables) which is an 8″ Newtonian telescope. This telescope design uses a concave parabolic mirror (a significant part of the expense) at the back of the tube to gather and focus light, and a small flat mirror near the front of the tube reflects this light to an eyepiece on the side. The wood stand makes things convenient, and we like the elastic tie-down used as a simple way to put tension on the mounts.

Do you find yourself intrigued but would prefer to start a little smaller and cheaper? Good news, because the same designer of the 203 Leavitt has a very similar design we happen to have featured before: the 114 Hadley. It features easily obtainable, lower-cost optics which perform well and can be easily ordered online, making it a great DIY starter telescope.

A Tiny Reflecting Telescope For Portable Astronomy

December 20, 2025 by 11 Comments

For most of us who are not astronomers, the image that comes to mind when describing a reflecting telescope is of a huge instrument in its own domed-roof building on a mountain top. But a reflecting telescope doesn’t have to be large at all, as shown by the small-but-uncompromising design from [Lucas Sifoni].

Using an off-the-shelf mirror kit with a 76mm diameter and a 300mm focal length, he’s made a pair of 3D-printed frames that are joined by carbon fibre rods. The eyepiece and mirror assembly sit in the front 3D-printed frame, and the eyepiece is threaded so the telescope can be focused. There’s a 3D-printed azimuth-elevation mount, and once assembled, the whole thing is extremely compact.

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DIY Telescope Uses Maker Tools

October 17, 2025 by 13 Comments

You’ve got a laser cutter. You’ve got a 3D printer. What do you make? [Ayushmaan45] suggests a telescope. The modest instrument isn’t going to do serious astronomy with only 8X worth of optics, but it would make a fine spyglass for a youngster.

The body is cut from MDF, and there are only a few 3D printed parts. The only other things you need are rubber bands and a pair of lenses. You don’t even need glue. We might have spray painted the inside of the scope black or used some black contact paper to cut down on reflections, although it probably wouldn’t make much difference.

Of course, depending on your lenses, you may have to make some changes. Or find new lenses, for that matter. We like that it doesn’t take any exotic parts. We also appreciate that it is easy for kids to take apart and put back together. It would be interesting to see how a motivated kid might alter the design, as well.

If a kid gets interested, you could move on to a more sophisticated telescope. Or maybe you’d prefer a nice microscope.

DIY electronic eyepiece viewfinder for telescope

Low-Cost, High-Gain: A Smart Electronic Eyepiece For Capturing The Cosmos

September 21, 2025 by 20 Comments

We’ve all seen spectacular pictures of space, and it’s easy to assume that’s how it looks to the naked eye through a nice telescope. But in most cases, that’s simply not true. Space is rather dark, so to make out dim objects, you’ll need to amplify the available light. This can be done with a larger telescope, but that’s an expensive route. Alternatively, you can observe objects for longer periods. This second approach is what [Jordan Blanchard] chose, creating a budget electronic eyepiece for his telescope.

This eyepiece is housed in a 3D printed enclosure designed to fit a standard 1.25″ telescope focuser. The sleek, ergonomic enclosure resembles a night vision device, with a 0.39″ screen for real-time observation of what the camera captures through the telescope. The screen isn’t the only way to view — a USB-C video capture module lets you connect a phone or computer to save images as if you were peering through the viewfinder.

The star of this project is the IMX307 camera module, which supports sense-up mode for 1.2-second exposures and increased gain to capture dim objects without post-processing. This sensor, commonly used in low-light security cameras and dash cams, excels at revealing faint celestial details. All combined, this project cost under 200 Euros, an absolute steal in the often pricey world of astronomy.

Don’t have a telescope? Don’t worry, you can build one of those as well.