We've designed a Huge Airplane-Friendly Telescope... (12" F4 Suitcase Newtonian)

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Here it is, folks. A brand new 12in F4 Newtonian designed by me and robot engineer Kerry. It packs into a suitcase. I'm taking it to La Palama in a few days time. And I thought I'd share me talking about it to the Bisceteers in the biscuit arms uh which which I recorded a few days ago. So here we go.

[00:00:23]So yeah, super lightweight, super sturdy, the columnation holds beautifully.

[00:00:30]Um, the mirror comes from uh Telescope Express.

[00:00:37]Shall I get it out? Oh, I'm scared.

[00:00:41]>> Don't drop it, Rory.

[00:00:43]>> [ __ ] And I've got I can tell my fingers are really greasy as well, so I have to make sure I don't put my fingers on the actual mirror.

[00:00:51]>> Put the cover on, Rory.

[00:00:53]>> Well, I'm looking around. I can't see the cover. Where have I put the cover?

[00:00:57]Oh, I know. It's in here. It's here.

[00:00:59]>> I've only had a couple of years. It'll be fine.

[00:01:02]>> Recording rate.

[00:01:03]>> At any point it goes horribly wrong.

[00:01:08]>> At least we can say it's on camera.

[00:01:09]>> Car's probably sweating right now.

[00:01:11]>> Is Gary here? He said he was coming.

[00:01:13]Actually, >> I am here.

[00:01:15]>> Hey, Carrie.

[00:01:18]You've been bloody quiet, haven't you?

[00:01:23]>> So, Carrie built this scope. So, I just show everyone the mirror. So, the mirror screws in. It's a TS Optics.

[00:01:30]Yeah. 303 mm F4. I think actually it's made in Taiwan by GSO. The reason for choosing this mirror is it's lightweight basically. And I'll show you why it's lightweight.

[00:01:45]There we go.

[00:01:47]Well, >> the mirror is lovely and light, but the mount that came with it wasn't.

[00:01:54]>> Wow. That's >> Oh, wow. So, can you see that it's a conicle shape?

[00:02:02]>> Yes.

[00:02:03]>> And it has and then you can see where it screws in. Right.

[00:02:07]>> Getting this um getting this whole setup down to 18 kg was not terribly easy. Do you want to tell him about it, Carrie, a bit?

[00:02:19]>> Well, I'd rather just say has anyone got any questions that I can answer? It's when you're producing it >> to order.

[00:02:28]>> So, so it all breaks down, right? Right.

[00:02:31]>> Yeah. So, that's the point, right? Well done, Adon. So, the idea is it all break down, pack it in a suitcase and take it off to La Palmer. Right. This is the big idea. So, my big mission started freaking ages ago was does going up a volcano mean you can get shots close to what the um what the big boys get with their big telescopes? I went up with an 8 in. We got really It's actually quite difficult to tell which one is sharper, right? And that was with an 8 in. So then the next thing was okay. So to really make the use the most out of this amazing seeing that we've got up a volcano really we need a bigger telescope. So this is it. A 12in Newtonian that can go up a telescope.

[00:03:18]>> It can go up a volcano.

[00:03:22]You can >> no you need go up a telescope.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah, you can go up a telescope. You have to bring the volcano to the telescope, right?

[00:03:36]>> Here.

[00:03:37]>> Yeah. The main struggle is putting volcan as long as there's no guitar strings in this one. That's all.

[00:03:49]I still stand by that.

[00:03:52]>> So the so the the thing is right these mounts came out. This is a warpron 20 P and they very nicely sent it to me specially for this mission. Uh it's rated to carry 30 kg.

[00:04:07]Guess what? It doesn't actually carry 30 kg because it's to do with the moment arm.

[00:04:13]to the distance from this axis of rotation to the center of gra to the center of mass of the telescope. Right?

[00:04:20]So ours is like the center of mass of this Newtonian is 29 cm. Right? So that creates quite a big moment arm that the motors do struggle with it seems. Uh and it's why when we started building this Carrie, how big how heavy was it to begin with? So, we had we had a meeting online where I I'd just finished the design and shown it to you and uh I said, "Oh, it's it's going to be about 27 kilos." And you went, "That's fine.

[00:04:54]It's as long as it's under 30, we're all good."

[00:04:59]So, we made it and it was it was 20, you know, the CAD software was bang on >> and and I'd taken a fair bit of weight out of it already. I think I don't know if you can see like inside of the plates. It's all like an isog grid.

[00:05:16]>> Is it a monome?

[00:05:18]>> Looks Yeah, it's triangles instead.

[00:05:21]>> So, think of a beehive, but all triangles.

[00:05:23]>> The easiest one for me to show is here.

[00:05:26]Yeah, >> but it's like that on the whole plate on the inside.

[00:05:31]>> I put them in there in the first place, but I left a fair bit of material in thinking, you know, let's go overkill cuz we got 30 kilos. So, that's what we did. Um, and then we had a little bit of an epiphany when we put it on the mount that it was going to be too heavy.

[00:05:51]So, we had round one of the diet, got it down to I think it was 23, wasn't it Rory?

[00:05:58]>> Something like that. Yeah.

[00:05:59]>> And then we sort of decided that no, the >> Well, then I tested it again and it and it >> and I was using a little I was using my carbon fiber uh TC40 mount, the one that a lot of people use with their AM5s.

[00:06:13]And uh you'd tap it right and 10 seconds later it would stop wobbling and it was not guiding well.

[00:06:22]>> So we sort of figured it out, didn't we, that it needed to be substantially under 20 to make this work.

[00:06:30]So the iso grid pattern got increased to the absolute maximum.

[00:06:37]Um, so now that telescope, there's not any part of it that's more than 2 mm thick.

[00:06:44]>> Wow.

[00:06:45]>> And the um the whole thing is held together with these. So these corner I don't know if you how well you can see, but these these corner sections. They're kind of like this. There's there's plates and then there's like little corner sections that look like a sort of mini mountain shape. Uh those those need to be super strong. A lot of the if if if you get any flex in these corner sections, then this uh triangle shape that I was talking about goes slightly out of alignment. So, it's has to be super strong and super light. Uh so K's chiseled out bits but when he says it's only two millimeters thick right he it's not two it's like about 13 millimeters thick actually in this in this uh axis in which could potentially make the corners bend inwards right 13 mm is thick and provides incredible rigidity what is it the um I think the thickness is cubed or is it the squared your cube of the thickness provides >> the thickness. So the difference between 10 mm in these corner sections in that axis >> and 13 mm is double. It's twice as strong with 13 mm thick aluminum in in this axis. But Kerry has chiseled out so it's only 2 mm thick in in some of the other axes which where the we don't need the the stiffness so much. But now we're down to 18 kg.

[00:08:17]>> Yeah. But that's aluminium bolts, aluminium thread bar.

[00:08:21]>> So there are little aluminium balls on the end of these rods which are clamped in. They were steel. We saved about a kilogram by swapping the steel balls on the end of these rods and the and the thread actually with aluminium thread and rods.

[00:08:36]>> Another kilo with the bolts as well.

[00:08:38]>> Yeah, we've worked hard to get it down to 18 kg.

[00:08:42]>> What do you think of it, guys?

[00:08:44]>> It looks >> It looks lovely if I may say that. Oh, really cool.

[00:08:49]>> It's very cool. God, I hope it works.

[00:08:52]Honestly, going to like saying the thing is I had I I'm a months too early going really, but I had to do it cuz I'm mov I'm moving out of London. My daughter's got her A levels coming up. My MS doesn't want me freaking working 12-hour days just before Christmas. And basically, that means I've got to go in three days to shoot it, to get the video out, and all the rest of it. So, yeah. Flipping heck. I really hope it works. As I say, I'm a bit worried about this mount, but yeah, I love I love the scope. I think it looks I think it's great.

[00:09:25]>> What's your plans going over to La Palmer again for a mount glory? Are you taking that mount with you or >> I'm taking this mount with me, but I am hire Well, actually Kai, the guy who I remember my journey to the G universe, I went to this place in La Palmer run by Kai.

[00:09:41]>> Um >> Oh, yeah. He's uh lending me a tripod because we found that actually the carbon fiber tripods are very uh like b essentially what I've discovered is that lightweight tripods are wobbly.

[00:10:00]>> It doesn't seem to even if you like like you get a ratchet right and you ratchet the bloody tripod to the ground right it's still wobbly. In fact, High Point Scientific sent me their heavyduty carbon fiber tripod. It's like 600 quid.

[00:10:16]I love High Point Scientific. I think the tripod is great, as it happens, but it doesn't work with this. And the reason it doesn't work is cuz when you put a pier on it, the interface between the pier and the tripod is just a little bit wobbly. And just a little bit is curtains. for this. It has to be it has to be screwed in to the tripod. And those I guess commercial tripods, they they rely on little sort of like puck like interfaces that go on the bottom of your mount and go into the tripod and you can swap them out and switch them out and all the rest of it, but it just doesn't work as well as literally screwing it in. So, >> we've made a new pier, haven't we?

[00:11:01]>> Yeah. So, this this pier will work on the tripod that Kai is lending me in the Palmer. You can't see the pier. Unless maybe if I go down here, you can see it.

[00:11:12]>> So, here's the pier.

[00:11:13]>> I think that's probably one of the one of the biggest follys that's happened with these lightweight setups is the use of carbon fiber tripods. They're great in terms of being light and stiff, but they exacerbate.

[00:11:27]I mean, I was finding I think we found with the the the classic TC40, I think it's called the ZWO one, the rubber feet are a real problem on it with anything heavy. And then with the the Apertura heavyduty tripod, uh it was the interface between the tripod and the pier was wobbly. And those those were just killed it, right? But these big heavy this this one my dad and my mom got for me when he was still alive. They went and got it from me from Cornwall.

[00:11:57]It was like 90 quid. This big heavy tripod. I mean, you just can't beat like girth, right? Can't believe I just said that.

[00:12:08]>> You know what I mean?

[00:12:10]>> Yes. Good.

[00:12:12]>> Well, that's also the reason I love these big wooden tripods. They're just lovely. They're expensive, but they're lovely.

[00:12:19]>> What? The big wooden ones?

[00:12:21]>> Yep. Burlabach, for instance. They are expensive, but they are great. The vibration absorbance is just insane.

[00:12:29]>> Yeah. And in fact, Phil, were you going to lend me yours, weren't you?

[00:12:34]>> Yeah, I still can if you want. I mean, I've got two of these Berback tripods.

[00:12:38]They're really, really good for this. I found the same thing as these with the ZWO.

[00:12:43]The rubber feet are nightmare. And I'm sure that the carbon fiber is stiff, but it's got so no mass to it. So vibrations just kind of build up, I think.

[00:12:54]>> So your bur your I can't pronounce it.

[00:12:57]Burb they they work really nicely, do they?

[00:13:00]>> You can't go wrong with these burlac ones, but they are very very very heavy.

[00:13:05]I took one to Chile. That one you saw, I took that to Chile once and it nearly killed me.

[00:13:10]>> Yeah. I think there's another issue going on with these tripods actually in the harmonic mounts is because a lot of them this one this drive seems to work quite well with almost no counterweights. Right. But then the problem with that is that the center of mass is not centered over the tripod. If you can see my like the center of mass is about here.

[00:13:33]If you've got counterwes on the center of mass is about there. It's not going directly down on the tripod. And that means the forces acting on the tripod aren't in its strong place, which is like the forces going straight down the middle. All the compression forces are straight. It adds like twisting and bending force on the legs and stuff. And then when you're vibrating, that twisting and bending uh is accentuated, especially with heavy loads. So harmonic mounts and carbon fiber tripods actually end up having a bit of a problem due due to not having the center of mass directly going down through the tripod.

[00:14:10]>> Wasn't there like um a new mount someone was made uh announced that ne that's like off center on the tripod.

[00:14:20]>> Well, we did make a plate for that, didn't we, Rory? We made an offset plate >> to There it is. So in La Palmer, this angle here, which is 52°, is like 30° or something, right? So now the center of mass is even further away from the center of the tripod because this whole little mount thing has moved forward, right? Which is like that's getting insane. So Carrie, actually I had a hand in this as well, didn't I? I designed the I used Fusion to design the outside bit and Carrie did the difficult bit in here. But essentially, um, what we're going to do is move put this on this plate and then this plate goes out here.

[00:15:07]>> Uh, does it go out that way?

[00:15:08]>> Offending the whole mount.

[00:15:10]>> Offsetting the whole mount. So the center of m sorry this go sorry this goes this way. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:17]>> Because the center of And then we getting the center of mass going down here. But not only that is we've got a little um >> it's just a deep groove ball bearing >> with a rubber outside on. So when this is down right, this will actually be sitting on a a little bearing. So because there's cuz I was worried that all of the mass was going through these two arms and when this is down here, it feels like there's quite a lot of room for that to wobble. So, we've got this plate which will offset it so the center of mass is in the right place and also ease the pressure on these two on this hinge here, but the bearing will allow some of the force the weight to pass through this rather than all of the weight passing through these shoulders that are here. And we'll see in the UK it's not such a big deal because at 52° the center of mass is still fairly close. But actually, my best test was with this. Um, even in the UK. Yeah. And so ends me chatting away for ages. I'm going to go to the L. Kerry and Tim and Phil and Dave and Adonis and Tom. And did I say Tim already and Christine and everyone else?

[00:16:37]You're in charge for the moment. I'll see you in a bit. Right. We talk some [ __ ] about him now.