What, exactly, is the Galileoscope?
The Galileoscope is…
- An advanced educational telescope kit designed by a team of experts.
- An educational program to accompany the kit.
- A professional-development program for teachers.
- A cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the International Year of Light 2015.
What was the International Year of Astronomy?
The General Assembly of the United Nations designated 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009) to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations through a telescope.
What was the International Year of Light?
The General Assembly of the United Nations designated 2015 as the International Year of Light (IYL 2015) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson’s discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (the “afterglow” of the Big Bang), and a variety of other major anniversaries related to the physics of light.
Why is the Galileoscope supplied as a kit?
Students experiment with lenses while building the telescope. This is a much more powerful learning experience than receiving a preassembled telescope. They learn many aspects of optics and even have a chance to construct two types of telescopes — a more modern type and one very similar to what Galileo used.
Do you sell replacement parts?
No, we sell only complete kits. The only parts likely to wear out are the two small rubber O-rings used to hold the halves of the focuser tube together and the two larger rubber O-rings used to hold the halves of the main tube together (though most customers find that these larger O-rings are not really needed). You can easily find replacement O-rings at your local hardware store.
Why is the Galileoscope considered a tool for science education?
Astronomy is…
- The perfect vehicle both to interest kids in science and to teach the basics of optics and astronomy to elementary- and middle-school kids.
- A fantastic vehicle for teaching math skills.
- A great way to show the scientific process — how observations and evidence lead to explanations about how the world works.
How do you focus the Galileoscope?
By sliding the focusing tube — the roughly 6-inch-long skinny tube that holds the eyepiece — in and out. Terrestrial: To focus on a terrestrial scene, such as a distant tree or building, pull the focusing tube all the way out, then slowly push it in (twisting as you push helps it move smoothly) till your subject is in focus. Celestial: To focus on a celestial object, such as the Moon or a planet, push the focusing tube most of the way in, then slowly pull it out (again, twisting as you pull helps it move smoothly) until your subject is in focus. You’ll find that the distance from the back end of the telescope tube to the back end of the eyepiece (where your eye goes) is about 2½ inches (63½ mm) when focused on a celestial object.
What can you see with the Galileoscope?
The best views are of the key objects that Galileo observed and that influenced his views on astronomy. The Galileoscope is optimized to provide high-quality views of…
- Mountains and craters on the Moon, which revealed to Galileo that the Moon is a craggy world like Earth, not a smooth heavenly sphere.
- Four moons circling Jupiter, which revealed to Galileo that there can be more than one center of motion in the universe, and that a planet can move through space without losing its satellites.
- More stars in the Pleiades and Beehive star clusters than can be seen with the unaided eye, which revealed to Galileo that nature is filled with wonders never before imagined — literally more than meets the eye.
- Saturn’s rings, which perplexed Galileo because his telescope wasn’t good enough to show them clearly. (In its 50-power configuration, the Galileoscope will reveal Saturn’s rings in all their splendor.)
- Venus going through a complete set of phases, like the Moon, which showed Galileo that Venus orbits the Sun, not the Earth.
Do you have any photos taken through the Galileoscope?
Here’s a photo of the first-quarter Moon shot by Norwegian astronomer Andreas O. Jaunsen. You can find lots more photos shot through Galileoscopes on Flickr.
Andreas O. Jaunsen of Oslo, Norway, shot this very nice photo of the first-quarter Moon through a prototype of the Galileoscope.
Jaunsen shot some video too:
We also have the following terrestrial photo. Astronomer Stephen M. Pompea, U.S. program director for IYA 2009 and manager of science education at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, snapped it in mid-January 2009 in Paris, where UNESCO hosted the IYA 2009 opening ceremony.
U.S. IYA2009 program director Stephen Pompea shot these photos while in Paris for the IYA2009 opening ceremony. He pointed a Galileoscope out a window and aimed it at a distant building. The image at right shows the view through the instrument; Pompea simply held a digital point-and-shoot camera up to the eyepiece and snapped the shutter. He held the camera upside down to compensate for the fact that the view through the Galileoscope is itself upside down!
Wait…the view in the Galileoscope is upside down?
Usually. When used in the 17x Galilean configuration, with the Barlow lens serving as an eyepiece, the Galileoscope provides a correct, right-side-up view, that is, one that shows objects oriented the same way you see them with your eyes alone. So, for example, if the Moon is at first quarter, with its right half illuminated (as seen from the Northern Hemisphere), you’ll see the right half illuminated in the Galileoscope too. A correct, right-side-up view of the Moon at first quarter appears at left in the following trio of images. But a Galilean telescope has a very limited field of view, so you actually wouldn’t see the whole Moon at once — only a small part of it.
When used with the standard 25x eyepiece, images in the Galileoscope are rotated 180°, as in the center photo. This means the image is upside down, but if you were to look at it while standing on your head, it would look normal — in other words, it’s still a correct image. In the example above, it looks like the left half of the Moon is now illuminated in the telescope, whereas up in the sky, it’s the right half that’s bright. Note that if you look at the center image with your head turned upside down, you can read the words Top, Bottom, and so on just fine. Adding the 2x Barlow lens doubles the magnification to 50x but leaves the orientation unchanged — that is, it’s still rotated 180° from right-side up, and still a correct image. In this configuration, originally conceived by Johannes Kepler, a telescope gives a much wider, more comfortable field of view.
If you add a star diagonal, a common accessory that turns the eyepiece 90° so that you don’t have to crane your neck to look through the telescope at a celestial object high overhead, the image is right-side up but mirror-reversed — the left side is to the right, and the right side is to the left, as shown in the third photo. Now the words all appear backwards with their letters reversed, making them difficult to read.
Astronomers generally like the convenience of star diagonals and don’t mind the inconvenience of mirror-reversed images, since celestial objects don’t have labels on them! The main challenge when using a star diagonal is in comparing what you see in the eyepiece with what’s printed on a sky map, since no matter how you turn the map, it won’t match the telescopic view.
So, can I use a star diagonal with the Galileoscope?
Probably not. The Galileoscope is designed for straight-through viewing. There’s not enough “in focus” to permit the use of most star diagonals; we haven’t tested them all, but we haven’t found one yet that works. We recommend sitting in a chair with the Galileoscope on a tripod that can be extended to a height of at least 150 cm (60 inches). That way, observing celestial objects high in the sky will be comfortable even without a star diagonal.
Two other considerations: A star diagonal will block your view of the sighting posts along the top of the main tube unless you twist it to one side or the other. And, especially for beginners, trying to aim a telescope while looking at a right angle to the direction it’s pointing can be extremely difficult and frustrating. That’s a big part of why we designed the Galileoscope for straight-through viewing in the first place.
Can I use the Galileoscope for astrophotography?
As shown above and on Flickr, you can shoot photos of bright targets like the Moon and Jupiter by holding a smartphone or digital camera up to the eyepiece and snapping some quick exposures — as long as your Galileoscope is mounted on a stable tripod. While the Galileoscope accepts standard 1¼-inch accessories, including camera adapters, it is usually not practical to mount a smartphone camera on the Galileoscope — the extra weight will cause the focuser tube to slip. Some enterprising amateur astronomers have “hacked” the Galileoscope to prevent such slippage using various homemade mechanisms. Then, by attaching the Galileoscope to a motorized mount that track’s the sky’s east-to-west motion, these clever individuals have managed to shoot long-exposure astrophotos. That’s neat, but we designed the kit as a learning tool and visual telescope and wanted to keep its cost as low as possible, which is why it has the features it has (and why it lacks the features it lacks).