Reflector Telescope
currently seeking provisional patent : TPP76700
The intent of this telescope is to display the parabolic mirror's ability to focus its reflected light at a single point and to thread through the flat mirror set at a 45 angle.
This cost-effective model was built to illustrate that light will behave as outlined in the body of the patent application. Made out of foam-core and craft store mirror tile (30 cents a piece), the expectation regarding the quality of the magnified image was set very low, and not inline with the quality required for a telescope.
Four mirror tiles have been glued together in an off-set grid pattern in order to create the 1/16" hole at the center of the mirror. The seams where these mirror tiles connect result in some 'splitting', or 'doubling', of the output image in the eyepiece (see video).
The secondary mirror used for the prototype is a spherical mirror, rather than a parabolic mirror. It is expected that a parabolic mirror will result in a better quality image.
The eyepiece has been taken from a microscope.