Or would the tolerances needed in the hinged mirror make the whole thing unusable?
I was looking at modern “smart telescopes” recently and noticed some are sideways and wondered if that would be possible for a normal hobby Newtonian telescope.
Possible upsides:
- no tripod needed for use
- mirror is light so smaller motors can be used for movement
Possible downsides:
- maybe mirror flatness?
EDIT/UPDATE: so i tryed it with a 75mm first surface mirror, it kinda worked, at least better than a normal mirror, but i wasnt able to get it as sharply focused as i like. I suspect the mirrior i use has micro ripples because its just 2mm thick and doesent look like its seen a polishen process…guess thats how far a budget of 25bucks gets ya
Telescopes with fixed optics and mobile mirrors have been done. Mostly used for solar observation but they are few exceptions.
Most notably This telescope from Paris’s 1900 universal Exhibit . Poor scientific instruments but great party trick with focal length of 57 METERS !
Wow that quite the telescope! This is basically what i wanted to build just smaller and and with a Reflector scope instead of a Refactor scope, thank you very much for this informative comment :D