a brief history of telescope © 2003-2007 atm …making lurie -houghton newtonian telescope...

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Making Lurie-Houghton Newtonian Telescope Building’s Report of 5-inch telescope by Aki Lötjönen.

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Designing Lurie-Houghton Telescope Detailed calculations and design recommendations.

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MODAS 4.2xx New release with valuable changeover under development

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LHTCALC Java Script Lurie-Houghton Calculator

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�� History

A Brief History of Telescopes

The telescope is undoubtedly one of the world's most far-

reaching inventions. For the past four centuries the telescope

has stood at the forefront of human discovery. From its humble

beginnings in seventeenth-century Holland, when a simple

spectacle-maker first presented his invention to his country's

military leaders, to today's colossal structures housed in space-

age cathedrals, the telescope has unlocked nature's secrets.

The history of the telescope is a rich story of human ingenuity

and perseverance involving some of the most colorful figures of

the scientific world - Galileo, Johann Kepler, Isaac Newton,

William Herschel, George Ellery Hale, and Edwin Hubble.

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Robotic Telescopes Advanced telescope techniques.

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Fortune: This picture was made by the Bulgarian amateur astronomer and telescope maker Pencho Markishki (e-mail: [email protected]).

Hi is also advanced astro photograph, that reached great success with his very simple optics. More innovative photos can be seen on his home page at following url.:

http://www.geocities.com/markishky/

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Image Credit: Pencho Markishki

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Cleaning Optics If it's not dirty, don't clean it.

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Trigonometric and Coddington Raytrace Aberrations and Raytracing.


DiffCalc Simulation of diffraction limited star and CCD images.


TRIGON.BAS, CODDING.BAS Trigonometric and Coddington raytrace.


�� History

James Short: Europe’s foremost maker of Reflecting Telescopes

James Short was born in Edinburgh in 1710 and received a good

education, progressing to Edinburgh University in 1726. He

attended lectures by Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics,

and became interested in science. He mastered the craft of making

mirrors for reflecting telescopes and had a good understanding of

optical theory. During his working life of over 35 years, Short made

about 1,360 instruments - not only for customers in Britain but also

for export: one is still preserved in Leningrad, another at Uppsala

and several in America. Short was principal British collator and

computer of the Transit of Venus observations made throughout

the world on 6th June 1761. His instruments traveled on Endeavour

with Captain Cook to observe the next Transit of Venus on 3rd

June 1769, but Short died before this event took place.


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Hubble – 15 Years of Discovery Advanced telescope techniques.

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VLT and Hubble Collage of the Hubble Space Telescope above the world’s largest optical/infrared telescope, the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

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Image Credit: ESO/ST-ECF

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Grinding, Polishing, Materials Glossary.


Merit Function Optimization Aberrations and Raytracing.


FRED Optical design and analysis package.


AUTOFOCUS.BAS First steps in optimization.


�� History

Vasco Rionchi

Vasco Ronchi was an Italian physicist known for his work

in optics. He was born on 19th December 1897 in

Florence, Italy. Along with Enrico Fermi, he was a

student of Luigi Puccianti. He studied from at the

Faculty of Physics of the University of Pisa 1915-1919. In

1922 he published work describing testing methods for

optics using simple equipment. The Ronchi Test is widely

used in amateur telescope making. He served numerous

terms as the President of the 'Union Internationale

d'Histoire des Sciences' within the UNESCO. He

authored 900 papers and 30 books.


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Subaru – Japan’s Eye of the Universe Earth’s greatest telescopes.

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Subaru Telescope is located on the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the big island of Hawaii. The summit of Mauna Kea is one of the best astronomical observing sites in the world. With 13 telescopes form 11 countries now operating, Mauna Kea has more telescopes from more countries than any other observing site. In addition to Subaru, there are three other 8-10m class telescopes on Mauna Kea, the Gemini North telescope and the two Keck telescopes.

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Image credit: Subaru

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Glass Types Optical materials glossary.


Calculating Geometrical MTF Image quality analysis.


LensForge Optical design and analysis package for Max OS X.


MTFPLOTTER.BAS Geometrical MTF plotter.


�� History

Leon Foucault: The Dance of Shadows

One of Foucault's many accomplishments was the publication, in 1859,

of his development of the older pinhole technique into the Foucault

test. Viewing the reflected pinhole across a straight knife edge causes a pattern of shadows that clearly shows the figure of the mirror. This

simple improvement granted an enormous increase in the perfection of

telescope optics. Foucault went on to analyze the patterns made by

mirrors as they are polished from spherical to parabolic form. He also

experimented with moving the light towards the mirror and the

straight edge away from it, and with the various ellipsoidal mirror

forms that can be made in this way. In his fifty year lifetime, Foucault

also devised the famous Foucault pendulum, that was the first

experimental demonstration of the rotation of the earth. He was

also responsible for an accurate determination of the velocity of light, measured the distance to the sun with improved precision, and

pioneered the silver on glass telescope mirror.


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Planet Hunters Could Find Life Extrasolar Planets Searching.

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Jean Bernard Leon Foucault was a French physicist who is considered one of the most versatile experimentalists of the nineteenth century. He is well known for his experiments in optics and mechanics and was involved in the development of a method to measure the speed of light with extreme accuracy. Foucault is most often remembered for proving, with the use of a pendulum, that the Earth rotates on its axis.

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Image credit: OAMP

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Useful ATM Formulas ATM theoritical glossary.


An alternative Floation Cell for parabollicaly shaped Mirrors by using an elastic Foundation.


CODE V Optical design and analysis package review.


ATMFORMULAS.XLS Graphical representation of the most commonly used ATM formulas.


�� History

Henry Fitz: America’s First Commercial Telescope Maker

Henry Fitz was preceded by the earliest American

telescope makers, notably Amasa Holcomb, and followed

by Alvan Clark and John Brashear, the most important

makers from the United States. Fitz was the first

important American telescope maker because his

pioneering techniques of local correction of poor quality

glass allowed him to construct the largest American

made refractor. American made telescopes were much

less expensive, than those from Europe, and local

manufacture was an important factor in the proliferation

of observatories in Nineteenth Century America.


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It is a Question of Aperture

A Baker Street Reminiscence by Dr. John H. Watson

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The Dudly’s Observatory 13-inch Fitz refractor. Henry Fitz received commissions to build larger and larger telescopes for leading American universities and institutions. Among his larger telescopes were two 13" telescopes, one made for the Allegheny Observatory in 1861 that is still in service, and one for the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York. The Dudley telescope went into private hands around the turn of the century, and fell into obscurity until 1994…

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Image credit: S&T

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Objective Types A glossary


Field Correctors for a Fast Newtonian with Parabolic Primary


RossNullXP Ross Null Lens calculator


VIGNETTING.XLS Vignetting in a Newtonian telescope


�� History

Alvan Clark & Sons: World’s Greatest Telescope Makers

A renowned American maker of some of the world’s largest and best

lenses for refracting telescopes. Together with his sons, George

Bassett Clark (1827-1891) and Alvan Graham Clark (1832-1897), he

founded Alvan Clark & Sons at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, in 1846,

and proceeded five times to make the objectives for the largest refracting telescopes in the world. These included the 26-inch lens at

the US Naval Observatory (the first fine achromatic lens produced in

the United States), the 32-inch lens at Pulkovo Observatory, the 36-

inch lens at Lick Observatory, and the 40-inch lens at Yerkes

Observatory, the largest ever built. The optical work of Clark & Sons

was recognized as unsurpassed anywhere and represented the first

significant American contribution to astronomical instrument-making;

prior to this, American telescopes had never compared with those of

European manufacture. Alvan Graham Clark is also remembered

particularly for his discovery of the (white dwarf) companion of Sirius in 1862.


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SuperWASP

Planetary transit telescope project

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The trial mounting for the great Russian telescope in Pulkovo, Russia constructed by Alvan Clark & Sons 1883. The refractor was destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad (today St. Petersburg) and only the lens survives. The 32-inch objective can be seen in the Pulkovo’s Museum.

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Image credit: SA

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a brief history of telescope © 2003-2007 atm …making lurie -houghton newtonian telescope...

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