Improving Collimation for a Newtonian Telescope

Main: Donovan Macanas, Tina Li, Shane Brown, Kent Harada

Underclassmen: John Bredall, Karen Calaro, Colin Happ, Bryant Higa, Nicole Clare Hortizuela, Ryan Matsumoto, Andrew Millard, Clinton Ng, Heather Situ, Reginald Tolentino, Joseph Yee

Advisor: A Zachary Trimble

University of Hawaii at Manoa

August 2016 - May 2017

Amateur Astronomy produces significant contributions to the field of Astronomy because the smaller telescopes can see things like supernovae and comets that the larger observatories miss. Our team, Manoa Astronomical Technologies aimed to cultivate an interdisciplinary Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) program in which students will experience the design process, learn team dynamics, and gain technical skills through tasks focusing on reducing optical abberations by improving collimation for Pioneer 01-A. We improved the design of the telescope produced in 2015-2016, Pioneer 01-A along with growing the Manoa Astronomical Technologies program to develop future leadership for the program from within the team.

The main problem that amateur astronomers have with Newtonian telescopes is collimation. Collimation is aligning all the optical elements in their designed optical axis (in line and parallel). This takes into consideration the tilt and decenter (horizontally and vertically) of the optical systems. To improve collimation, design considerations were considered that limits the deviation from the optimum position. The design was improved considering:

• Kinematic Constraints

• Axial Loading & Universal Joints

• Radial Loading & Whiffletree

• Pre-Load Mechanism

• Collimation Screws

Final paper and final poster available upon request.

Timelapse video by Shane Brown.