PiKon: A 3D-Printed, Raspberry Pi-Powered Telescope

If you like the idea of having a telescope to look at the night sky, but would rather build one yourself, then Mark Wrigley has just the astro-cam for you. The low-cost, 3D-printed PiKon Telescope uses the amazing hardware built into the Raspberry Pi, along with a Pi Camera, to zoom in on celestial objects.

Aside from the Pi and camera module, you’ll also need a long tube, a method to hold the camera inside the tube called a “spider,” and a curved mirror.

The design replaces the conventional eye-piece of a Newtonian reflecting telescope with a Raspberry Pi camera (lens removed). The telescope mirror is then used to focus an image on the Raspberry Pi camera sensor giving a field of view of about 1/4 degree. (The moon subtends 1/2 degree at the eye).

For a little more information on how the PiKon works, check out Wrigley’s page or its Instagram account to see some pictures taken with it!