Ultrascope

Ultrascope is a global citizen science initiative developed to radically reduce the cost of contributing to real science by enabling DIY engineers and amateur astronomers to perform useful measurements - specifically light curve photometry, which generates useful data for a number of scientific applications, including planet-finding and asteroid hunting. Together, we’re building up a network of scopes to solve address challenges faced by the larger scopes, like reduced bandwidth and coverage limited to the Northern Sky. Ultrascope allows astronomers to contribute to citizen science projects and conduct celestial photography and photometry by joining a network of peers, who by working collectively are able to generate data with a high degree of fidelity. 

Ultrascope Explorer - or UEX - is able to resolve objects around magnitude 9 on the 'H' scale used by professionals.

UEX can thus be used to teach the core principles of asteroid characterization - or asteroid-hunting - by conducting light curve analysis of main belt objects such as VESTA and CERES - very large asteroids around H 9 that are in the orbit between Mars and Jupiter.

A larger version of the Ultrascope (called 'Ultrascope Odyssey', or UOD) will have the ability to collect data from objects in the H 11-12 region. This will allow users to help characterize NEOs (Near Earth Objects) which are much smaller and darker. UEX, however, makes an excellent learning device for beginners and there are a number of citizen science initiatves that welcome data gathered from a scope that can capture data from Magnitude 9 objects.

Smartphone Controlled

Ultrascope Explorer (or UEX) uses a high mega-pixel smart phone as the camera and input/output device (i/o) using 4G LTE. At the moment, our Ultrascope software is limited to Windows Mobile. Our recommend handset is thus the Nokia Lumia 1020.

Ultrascope Explorer - or UEX - is able to resolve objects around magnitude 9 on the 'H' scale used by professionals. UEX can thus be used to teach the core principles of asteroid characterization - or asteroid-hunting - by conducting light curve analysis of main-belt objects such as VESTA and CERES - very large asteroids around H 9 that are in the orbit between Mars and Jupiter. A larger version of the Ultrascope (called 'Ultrascope Odyssey', or UOD) will have the ability to collect data from objects in the H 11-12 region. This will allow users to help characterize NEOs (Near Earth Objects) which are much smaller and darker. UEX, however, makes an excellent learning device for beginners and there are a number of citizen science initiatives that welcome data gathered from a scope that can capture data from Magnitude 9 objects.

3D Printing and Materials

3D Printing is a process for making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of material. This scope can be printed on a wide range of 3D printers. The time and material estimations in this guide are based on an Ultimaker 2 3D Printer and Cura 3D slicing software.