Ultrascope: a robotic telescope from parts printed on a 3D printer with the Nokia Lumia 1020 as a “brain” and camera

Modern gadgets sometimes find a completely unexpected application. For example, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is used in a new project of a modular robotic telescope as a control element, a mirror and, in fact, a digital camera for taking photographs of space objects.

The device was created by the founder of the Open Space Agency, James Parr. Now the project team is refining the telescope, and after everything is finally finished, the drawings, software sources and everything else will be uploaded to the project site so that anyone can use this data to create their own telescope. The main goal of the Open Space Agency is to popularize astronomy and attract people's attention to space exploration. It is clear that Microsoft is involved in the project for a reason, but Ultrascope is a really interesting device.
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The height of the telescope is about 1 meter, the width of the base is 0.65 m.

The telescope positioning control system is based on the Arduino. To get started, the telescope connects to a PC or laptop based on Windows (respectively, there is a control application). The telescope is positioned on the ISS, the station position data is taken from the Network.

After that, the desired object is selected, the phone makes images that are immediately uploaded to the “cloud” for post-processing. As a result, the owner of the telescope receives high-quality images of the desired space objects.



Unfortunately, the technical characteristics of the telescope are not given yet, all this information will be available after the project enters the final stage.


Telescope layout

Now an application is being developed that will allow the Lumia line of smartphones to work with the device. On the project website, you can register as a beta tester, get the necessary materials and try to create your own telescope.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4fuABCtMwQ