Telescope (English)
30-60 min
Ages 5+
What Will You Make?
We are going to create a homemade telescope, this is quite similar to the one made by Galileo Galilei with which he made discoveries that have marked the history of modern science.
What Will You Learn?
A telescope is a tool that astronomers use to see faraway objects. Most telescopes, and all large telescopes, work by using curved mirrors to gather and focus light from the night sky.
In this project, you’ll build your own telescope and calculate it’s focal length. The lens’ focal length tells us the angle of view—how much of the scene will be captured—and the magnification—how large individual elements will be.
Gather your materials...let's get started!
Before we start creating our telescope, we are going to calculate the focal length of the largest magnifying glass, this will be the main lens.
Measure focal length
Step 1
We are going to dim the light in the room and place a spotlight or a lamp away from our magnifying glass but in the same direction, and in front of the magnifying glass we will place our piece of cardboard.
We will observe how the light passes through the magnifying glass and ends up on the cardboard, start moving the magnifying glass away or closer to the cardboard, you will see how the image changes and it will focus, at that moment you stop and measure the distance from the magnifying glass to the cardboard, that will be the focal length, now we must check that all our tubes achieve our focal length, since we will move them to focus on the objects to be observed.
Remove lens...carefully
Step 2
Very carefully use an xacto knife or box cutter and separate the lenses of both loupes.
Build your telescope
Step 3
Cut the back of the tubes, then take one of them and cut it down the side, we will make this tube smaller so roll it up a bit and tape the ends together.
Step 4
Line your tubes with the sheets of paper.
Attach your lens
Step 5
Take the largest lens and tape it to the largest tube. Next, tape the second lens in the smaller tube. If there is a big difference in work use a sheet of paper to fix it, as shown in the pictures.
Connect tubes and Voila!
Step 6
Join both tubes and you’re done – you have created your microscope! We can move the tubes to focus the objects being observed.
Finished Samples
Resources
Media
What Is Happening Here?
Optics
Our telescope works by using curved mirrors to collect and focus light from the night sky. The mirrors or lenses of a telescope are called “optics.”
Really powerful telescopes can see objects very far away and very faint. To achieve that, the optics have to be very large. The larger the mirrors or lenses, the more light the telescope can collect. The light is concentrated by the shape of the optics. And that light is what we see when we look through a telescope.
Learn more about how telescopes work in this article by NASA.
What Is Next?
Try these builds next
About MoonMakers
MoonMakers — led by Camila and Diego Luna — are a community of creators passionate about knowledge. A Makerspace, an open space with different digital manufacturing machines. And a YouTube channel where we promote science, technology and the maker movement.
MoonMakers have collaborated with companies such as: Sesame Street, Make Community and in Mexico with Educational Television and Fundación Televisa, creating educational content.
We have given workshops throughout the Mexican Republic with: Talent Land, Secretary of Education in Jalisco, Conacyt, Centro Cultural España.
Materials:
- 2 Magnifying glasses of different sizes
- 2 cardboard tubes
- Scotch tape
- Scissors
- Exact or cutter
- Pencil
- Paperboard
- Measuring tape or ruler
- Flashlight or spotlight
- colorful leaves
- Glue
