University of Sheffield.
Image of the moon from PiKon telescope
Just last week, the University of Sheffield, one of the top universities for employing additive manufacturing technologies in its Centre for Advanced Manufacturing, revealed a telescope that cost just £100 to make using 3D printed parts and a Raspberry Pi camera.
Entrepreneurs at the university, Mark Wrigley and Andy Kirby have released these stunning first ever photos of space ever taken from a 3D printed telescope. They have even made the printable files available online so that any curious astronomers can try and print one for themselves.
PiKon, based on Isaac Newton’s reflecting telescope design works using a Newtonian concave mirror to form an image directly onto a Raspberry Pi sensor which is attached via 3D printed components.
University of Sheffield.
Image from 3D printed telescope
The telescope has a magnification of times 160 making it possible to view detailed lunar reflections, galaxies and star clusters with the same level of accuracy as similar models which can typically cost around £800.
Mark Wrigley, said: "We’ve called this project Disruptive Technology Astronomy because we hope it will be a game changer, just like all Disruptive Technologies. We hope that one day this will be seen on a par with the famous Dobsonian ‘pavement’ telescopes, which allowed hobbyists to see into the night skies for the first time. This is all about democratising technology, making it cheap and readily available to the general public. And the PiKon is just the start. It is our aim to not only use the public’s feedback and participation to improve it, but also to launch new products which will be of value to people.”
The Disruptive Technology Astronomy project is part of the University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind which has been created to bring academic research to the public.
