A telescope that aims itself.
A 10-inch Dobsonian designed and built from scratch by eight students in Mountain View, California.
Scroll
Mechanical
Plywood, aluminum, and printed ASA.
A truss-tube Dobsonian. The birch mirror box rides on Teflon bearings inside a rocker box, six aluminum poles carry the upper cage, and every bracket is printed in-house. It splits in two and fits in a car.
Electrical
Two steppers and a Raspberry Pi.
A NEMA 23 drives altitude through a sector gear; a NEMA 17 turns azimuth by belt. A Raspberry Pi 4 runs the scheduler, the safety interlocks, and the camera from 12 V and 24 V rails.
Optics
254 mm of glass at f/4.48.
A donated parabolic primary folds light off a 70 mm flat into a cooled ToupTek camera. 1,138 mm focal length, enough to reach galaxies near magnitude 12.
Public observatory
Anyone can use it.
At first light, you pick a target from your phone. The telescope finds it, photographs it, and emails you the image. Free, every time.
Crew
Eight students. Every discipline.
Eeshan Khandelwal
Electronics & Software Lead
Vidu Senadheera
Co-Mechanical Lead
David Cho
Co-Mechanical Lead
Neel Chhatrala
Electronics Lead
Aryan Khanna
Physics Calculation Lead
Tristan Schaefer
Outreach Lead
Ishaan Sakariya
Mechanical
Dominic Reouk
Mechanical
This project has no president. Its leads are Eeshan Khandelwal (Electronics & Software), Vidu Senadheera and David Cho (Mechanical), Neel Chhatrala (Electronics), Aryan Khanna (Physics Calculations), and Tristan Schaefer (Outreach). Ishaan Sakariya and Dominic Reouk are mechanical members.
Support
Put your name on the telescope.
The project is student-run and sponsor-funded. Cash goes straight to the parts list; equipment and fabrication credit go straight onto the instrument.
- Cash raised
- $850
- In-kind sponsors
- 12
- Parts budget
- $1,472–1,583
- Your name engraved on the telescope
- A permanent listing on our sponsors page
- Thanks at every star party we host
- An invitation to first light