Exacto knife 2. Hot glue gun Let's do it! I actually made the mistake of putting the entire thing together without this initial step, and I regretted it quickly. This is going to be really helpful when you focus your telescope. A simple lens never will produce razor edge-like image, but the Moon can be observed with a scope built with this objective lens. Halloween Pumpkin With a Moving Animatronic Eye | This Pumpkin Can Roll Its Eye. If they're a little off (mine were) use gaffers tape to make the internal diameter smaller, rest the lens on the end of the pipe, and hot glue it in place using a low heat hot glue gun. Cut the larger tube to be about 3/4 the focal length of the powerful lens. The smaller diameter tube should be about double the size of the larger tube that you just cut off. Ultimately, I decided that I'd tape the inside of the larger pipe. 5.2 Making the tripod legs javascript is enabled. But remember that the smaller diameter can't gather as much light as the original; the ratio is a square, so when you reduced the diameter to 1/2, the light gathering ability of the hacked lens will be only 1/4 of it. Building this for the science fair, what did you glue the bigger lense, to and where did you stick the paint cap. There was an astronomer-teacher guy, Kulin Gyorgy, or simply "Uncle Georgie" for those thousands who got helps and assistance from him to build scopes from cheap and simple parts around the house. Today this era became a part of the history, but we have memories of this scope building method, so I can mention some tricks to improve the image of this scopes we call "simple scopes", or "nut-thrasher".First never forget, in physics there are not wonders - the simple lens refracts the gathered light, and so it became also a prism; but a prism divides the colours of the spectrum, so this lens will create very disturbing orange and blue, blurry semicircles around the celestial objects (like stars and planets, even Moon), and so you can't set the focus properly, simply because there won't be only one exact focal point of all the divided colours. Let it dry for a while... you don't want it to be at all wet for the next step. Your refractor includes a collimating eyepiece that can help you to roughly check the alignment of your telescope in the daytime. This I really nice and proper instructable and I am looking forward to make a telescope. Add the value of the focal lengths of the short and long lens together. The maximum physical size limit for refracting telescopes is about 1 meter (40 inches), dictating that the vast majority of large optical researching telescopes built since the turn of the 20th century have been reflectors. But, you know, there are not wonders...1. Now do that a few times to completely cover the inside. A 4-inch (100mm) reflector is a good entry level for amateur … If you're using a lens from a magnifying glass, get it out using the exacto knife and dremmel. Never use plastic ones, the plastic is for ONLY eye glasses, believe me, its refracting errors are horrible over the focal lenght!2. Gaff, Gaft, whatever. Make sure each length of PVC is a bit greater than the focal length of the lens. Two lenses of different magnification. Using the smaller pipe that you bought, flatten the tape against the inide of the PVC by sliding the small pipe down the larger one. Powerful Telescopes, Big Rewards. Tools: 1. I encourage anyone interested in building a telescope to check out my process and modify it as they see fit! As of late, I've become very interested in space, stars, galaxies, and the universe. Anyway, let's get started!What you'll need: 1. The length of the assembled telescope will be a little longer than the sum of the focal lengths of the two lenses. Make sense? You need to add some steps in here relating to tube length and mounting and adjusting of the tubes and mirrors themselves. Make sure the larger diameter one also has larger magnification power. Cover the two lengths of PVC with black spraypaint, and even do the inside. The collimating eyepiece has a pinhole sight that helps you determine if the optics are properly aligned with the tube. I got one out of a handheld magnifying glass (the smaller in size lens) and from a scientific equipment shop. Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated! I ended up getting a good amount of magnification and I can see craters on the moon in an urban area (Washington, DC). The fact that my pipes were pretty small didn't help either. Hot glue your lens in the holder, and stick the holder into the telescope. xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'">. This is a fact, no way to ignore it...If you use simple lenses, (which are grinded from only one piece of glass) as objectiv lens (for example the home magnifiers), the result will always be this poor optical quality. This may be useful when looking at Moon, but the dim galaxies and nebulae won't be seen with a scope with an objectiv diameter under 70-80 mm.3. Sadly, there were several things that could've been done much better with more time. I used a few strips of gaff tape that I stripped down the middle. For a good small scope for cheap is available here - this is a kit for children, I have built it in a school (as a classroom-activity leader teacher), and its imaging is very cool, but the joy of the DIY making is remains. To admire the Moon or Jupiter and Saturn this set may be perfect.And never use lenses under 5-6 focal ratio, because those lenses are big challenge even for a high precision achromats, ar apochromats. on Introduction, NIce work, my parents' generation made scopes like this in my homeland, in Hungary. Simple lenses are useful for astronomy with only these very limited ways.Sorry, I was too long, I'm afraid.