Kids Craft: How to Make a Telescope

by Mom It Forward on June 3rd, 2014 | 1 Comment »

Have you ever wanted to travel to the moon or see the stars up close? Now you can with a homemade telescope. Purchasing a telescope can be costly. Create this fun telescope make out of black craft paper and save money.

How to Make a Telescope

Materials Needed

Light weight black paper
Black tape (I used duct tape)
2 lenses - Purchase 2 magnifying glasses, one with less magnifying power (2x or 3x) will be your eyepiece and another with larger magnifying power (6x or 8x) will be the objective lens.

Instructions

Break the magnifying glasses apart to retrieve the lenses. Break it carefully so you don't break the glass. This is easy to do.
Roll the black paper to form two tubes. One of the tubes will be larger than the other so the smaller tube can slide easily inside it.
The sum of the lengths of your 2 tubes should be more than the sum of their focal lengths.To figure out their focal lengths solve this equation. Make sure the sum of the lengths of your 2 tubes should be more than the sum of the focal lengths. Here is a formula to figure that out: Focal Length(cm)= 25 divided the Magnifying power. Magnifying power (2X,8X,etc.)
Hot glue the lenses on to their corresponding tubes. Make sure the two tubes slide into each other.This is one of the most important steps. While hot gluing, make sure the glue doesn't fall on the lens. This will ruin your lens.
The image formed at small distances will be inverted. For Astronomy, it doesn't really matter whether the planet is upside down or not.
To calculate the magnifying power of the telescope, use this formula:- M= focal length of front lens divided by the focal length of second lens.