Optical Designs

Abstract

For just about any telescope making project including a binoscope, or binocular telescope, it helps to become very familiar with the telescope’s optical path that light will take through your telescope. This will help you in making the overall design of the binocular telescope or binoscope, especially in terms of the fabrication of the individual telescope parts. The entire overall design of the binocular telescope or binoscope is based on the optical focal length, focal ratio, and the size of the primary mirrors or objective lenses. A good idea before you start the construction of your binocular telescope or binoscope is to draw the entire optical focal length diagram to scale on a computer. Using a computer with the appropriate software and a good optical ray trace program can show the position and angles of the mirrors (primary, secondary, and diagonals) including their focal lengths and actual position measurements in the optical system in either inches or millimeters. You can do this either to scale on the computer or draw it out by hand. Either way, you’ll have an optical schematic accurately shown to scale on a computer to help you construct your binoscope.