Optical Engineer Rik ter Horst shows us how he makes very small telescopes (at home) which are intended for use in micro-satellites.
Spiny Norman said:
Optical Engineer Rik ter Horst shows us how he makes very small telescopes (at home) which are intended for use in micro-satellites.
There are advantages to small spececraft telescopes.
On the large end of small spacecraft telescopes we have the enormously successful SOHO. Launched in 1995 and still going strong. The objective mirror of SOHO LASCO is 4 cm in diameter, though the lens on the front is bigger than that.
Going down in size we have the Canadian space telescope MOST. Which has done great work in studying long term variations of variable stars since 2003.
Going down from that is a telescopic camera designed to fit into a 20 cm cube nanosatellite. I haven’t heard whether that has been launched yet.
I haven’t heard of a worthwhile telescopic space camera that will fit in a 10 cm cube nanosatellite, and it may be impossible.