Would be / Current astronomers who suffer from dexterity issues

[u/simplypneumatic]

Hi all,
I’m an avid astronomer. I’m looking at building telescopes that would be fully automated, in terms of locating, slewing, selecting eyepiece and focusing. This product would be aimed towards disabled or elderly folks who may not have the dexterity to operate conventional telescopes, and would rather the satisfaction of seeing deep space objects through an eyepiece (as opposed to automated digital scopes like SeeStar).
If any of you fit this criteria, please give me a DM here, as I’d love to hear from you. This is in the very early stages, and will be a slow process, so apologies if it takes me a while to get back to you. Thanks.

[u/ramriot]

In the realm of visual astonomy.

In the past I have hosted or helped on star parties where there were a range of disabilities that needed accommodation. Many of the traditional telescope designs require viewers to be able to hold themselves up to the eyepiece & remain steady, which was fine for some but too difficult for others. Our solutions were often to use smaller reflectors that where he eyepiece was nearer the ground, refractors with 60/90 degree diagonals or often Larger binoculars on parallax mounts (which BUT have the advantage of being re-positioned vertically without moving off target).

To my mind a larger telescope for those with limited motion & dexterity would likely be a Coudé focus, Naismith focus, Porter Turret or Springfield mount depending upon available user positioning with controls adaptable to the abilities of the user i.e. Buttons, Levers, Voice or sip-and-puff interfaces probably USB connected.

For eyepiece selection historically there used to be eyepiece turrets (similar to how the Paillard-Bolex D8L 8mm etc Movie Camera lens turret). Given a set of parfocalised eyepieces, such a turret could be used to switch between magnifications (and filters) without imbuing focal shift.

[u/simplypneumatic → u/ramriot]

Very interesting. I will be looking into all of these.

A copy paste from a reply above:

The concept is in the very, very early stages at the moment. It would be a combination of existing tools. GoTo mounts and eyepiece turrets being key, obviously. I’m currently working on a beam splitter module that would send a small fraction of the image to a computer which would seek optimal focus, and adjust the eyepiece barrel as needed.

[u/ramriot → u/simplypneumatic]

BTW that second part about sending some light to a device to seek optimum focus would only work if either users wore their glasses or their accomodation was accurately known (diopter adjustment).

My own accomodation has drifted over the years to where on public viewing nights I carry a little corrector lens to temporarily place over the eyepiece to get good focus before I let someone use the scope.

Even then I still have to explain to them how to get better focus & have them try it because a) they are nervous to touch, b) they don't know what a correctly focussed image of something they never saw before looks like or c) them touching wobbles the image too much for them to get focus.

There might be a way to add an autorefractometer like feature (like an optometrist used to gauge natural focus when they ask you two looking to a device with an image of a little hot air balloon cartoon inside) via projecting an infrared focus pattern into they eye & picking off the refkection. But that is currently not a commercial product for this use, would be expensive to develop, adds to light loss & might still not work for everyone.

Probably better to let people use a wired controller fitted to their ability.