My Space Invaders Telescope

[jasonbar]

[not sure if I should post this in artwork, but this seemed like the place...]

A coworker who's an an amateur astronomer hosted a workshop for people who wanted to build telescopes.  Everybody wanted a clever theme: R2-D2, a giraffe, a surfing penguin, etc.

For me, an arcade game.  And what would be more appropriate than Space Invaders for a telescope?

A few short months later, I got it all together & kludged together some graphics (sharp readers will note that I mixed some Midway & Taito graphics on the same cabinet--sorry, I went w/ the artwork that I could find & download...).

Full set of pics at http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Space%20Invaders%20Telescope/?start=all.

Samples attached.

Enjoy!

-Jason

[arcadefever]

 

This is really cooooolllll   

i want one 

[crashwg]

How big is that thing?

[DaOld Man]

Sweeet!!

[Warborg]

Color me impressed...  That's a thing of beauty, man...

[ratzz]

WOW ... I love it, and want one!

[mccoy178]

That is really neat!  How long did it take to build that badboy?

[bfauska]

That's a great project, congratulations on a such a clean execution of a good idea.

Also...  Be sure to warn us if you're ever looking through that thing and see a bunch of creepy pixleated bugs zig-zagally marching down on us from the sky.  I'd like to have time to get into a sideways-driving squiggly-line cannon and hide under some floating rocks.

[jasonbar]

Thanks for you kind words--it was a fun project!

I put up a few more pics today to show how the telescope disassembles into 2 parts: the tube w/ mirrors & focuser & eyepieces, and the base, which rotates & cradles the tube to allow it to tilt up/down.

Same link: http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Space%20Invaders%20Telescope/?start=all


To answer all your questions:
- I think I started in late June or early July & spent only about 1-2hrs a week on average on it, probably.
- Somebody did a rough CAD model of the main parts, & I pretty much just went off his model (except for the shapes of the side panels of the base...and yes, I "cheated" & have a protrusion on the front for the control panel even though the real SI cabs didn't have that...).
- Cost was about $500ish for everything, including some extras.  An SLR camera adapter, book, sky software, & a 3rd eypiece will put me at about $600.
- Size:  Tube is cheap cardboard Sonotube from Home Depot: 7.5" dia x 48" or so long.  I think the turntable base is 20" diameter, so I guess the base is about 24" high.
- Primary parabolic reflector mirror is 6" dia, 48" focal length.
- Tube graphics are from thinkgeek.com.  Cabinet artwork is from various downloads, tweaked, printed @ Kinko's on vinyl, & glued on w/ 3M spray adhesive.


The first night I set it up, I could see the cloud bands across Jupiter, and when I looked @ the last full moon, I could clearly see peaks & valleys around the circumference of the moon--it's not just a perfectly circular disk up there in the sky w/ varying shades of gray--the circular border is actually jaggy--those mountains are pretty big relative to the moon's diameter!

-Jason

[Bones]

I am real interested in a project like this. Did you go as far as shaping/polishing the mirrors yourself of was it mostly constructed from off-the-shelf parts?

It looks bloody great. 

[jasonbar]

Thanks.  We didn't get too hardcore.

Here's a rough breakdown of the materials:
- cardboard sonotube
- lots of 3/4" wood (a 4'x8' sheet is plenty)
- lots of primer & paint
- lots of wood screws & machine nuts/bolts
- 6 screw-on feet for base & back of tube
- 3 teflon pads (machined) for base turntable
- 1 sheet of smooth linoleum sheet to bear on 3 teflon pads for base turntable
- 4 teflon sheet squares (cut from sheet) for pitch bearing cradle
- 2 machined Aluminum rings for pitch bearing surfaces
- edge molding to protect ends of tube
- 3 big & 3 little springs for mirror mounts
- 4-legged aluminum spider to hold small 45-deg secondary mirror on "top" end of tube (machined)
- primary & secondary mirrors (purchased--about $190)
- focuser (purchased $40)
- 2 eyepieces (purchased, $40 ea.)
- Telrad target (purchsaed, $40)
- laser collimator to adjust mirrors (purchased, $75)

So, just some basic woodworking skills w/ careful measuring (heck, you should see how sloppy I got in places, and as long as the mirrors still line up, it doesn't matter!), a few parts that require a machine shop if you want to do them nicely, and a few purchased parts is all you need, plus some know-how (which I didn't have, but I knew somebody with it!).

-Jason

[Green Giant]

So now the hot neighbor only thinks you are playing video games instead of watching her?  Nice...

[Bones]

Thanks.  We didn't get too hardcore.

Here's a rough breakdown of the materials:
- cardboard sonotube
- lots of 3/4" wood (a 4'x8' sheet is plenty)
- lots of primer & paint
- lots of wood screws & machine nuts/bolts
- 6 screw-on feet for base & back of tube
- 3 teflon pads (machined) for base turntable
- 4 teflon sheet squares (cut from sheet) for pitch bearing cradle
- 2 machined Aluminum rings for pitch bearing surfaces
- edge molding to protect ends of tube
- 3 big & 3 little springs for mirror mounts
- 4-legged aluminum spider to hold small 45-deg secondary mirror on "top" end of tube (machined)
- primary & secondary mirrors (purchased--about $190)
- focuser (purchased $40)
- 2 eyepieces (purchased, $40 ea.)
- Telrad target (purchsaed, $40)
- laser collimator to adjust mirrors (purchased, $75)

So, just some basic woodworking skills w/ careful measuring (heck, you should see how sloppy I got in places, and as long as the mirrors still line up, it doesn't matter!), a few parts that require a machine shop if you want to do them nicely, and a few purchased parts is all you need, plus some know-how (which I didn't have, but I knew somebody with it!).

-Jason

Thanks man! 

[mountain]

Excellent work! I like the attention to detail.

[danny_galaga]

love it! just so happens im building a space invaders cab. where did you get the artwork from? i have some but i seem to be stuck on the front of the cab where the coin door goes...

[jasonbar]

Howdy-

I got my art from tons of web searches.  Google images, some arcade art sites, etc.

What I used--if you want any files, I can e-mail them to you or anybody--they're just free items I found from searching--nothing copyrighted:

- JPG of kick panel, Taito version, I think.  60k.  Not high-res--probably not good for a full-size machine
- Then I photograhed my Simpsons coin door & made a crude Solidworks model of it and saved that as a JPG & overlaid it on the kick panel art
- AI vector art of Taito sideart.  I used the same art for both sides & extended the blue background to be big enough to fit the shape of my "cabinet" (the marquee & control panel protrude on my telescope, unlike the real cab)
- AI vector art of Midway control panel overlay.  Midway used 2 buttons for left/right, while Taito used a joystick.
- I found button artwork (I think from Johnny 5?) & overlaid buttons on the overlay artwork to complete the control panel
- JPGs & PNGs of bezel artwork, a few slightly different versions.
- ran MAME32 w/ overlay option turned on & bezel option turned off & took a screen grab for the screen.  Edited the image to remove lots of invaders to make them spell out my initials, and then I found an old arcade font (that didn't quite match the SI font) & put the "first light" info in player 2's score.  First light is the date when you first see something through your scope.


Found but didn't use:
- AI vector art of Space Invaders Deluxe bezel.  It didn't really go w/ the rest of my artwork
- 2 AI vector arts of Space Invaders logo
- AI vector art of the blocky space invaders themselves (I didn't use those for the tube graphics--I just bought Invaders stickers from thinkgeek.com)


-Jason

[ChadTower]

I was expecting him to say that when you look through the telescope it superimposes space invaders on the image. 

[jasonbar]

You give me too much credit, ChadTower!  :]

Actually, you could put a big old space invaders stickers on the primary (parabolic) mirror on that telescope and go out & look @ the sky & you wouldn't see the sticker--your image in your eyepiece would just be a little dimmer b/c you'd be blocking some of the light that was supposed to be getting to your eyeball--wild stuff...

-Jason

[jasonbar]

Got a new toy for my telescope: a bracket to hold a camera right up to the eyepiece to snap snazzy pics through the telescope.

I have a well-loved, old Casio Exilim EX-Z40 (4MP, 3x optical zoom).  It has pretty decent manual control of ISO, white balance, focus, EV Shift (whatever that is), & zoom to take some fair pictures.

Aligning the camera to each eyepiece is a bear, but I got better by the time I got to my 3rd & final eyepiece (highest mag, fussiest, generally worst image quality but pretty darn good tonight for some reason...).

Pictures: http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Space%20Invaders%20Telescope/moon%201-31-2010/

The pictures are sorted in the order in which they were taken, going from low to medium to high mag eyepieces (though I messed around w/ the camera zoom during each setup, so the photos don't necessarily progress in increasing zoom levels...).

Mars was out tonight, but it's no more than a reddish dot with my scope.  Someday I'll snap Jupiter & Saturn--those are both spectacular (though small) in my scope.

Thanks,
-Jason

[Franco B]

I didn't see the original post but thats very cool Jason. I'm a sucker for anything Spacies 

[Loafmeister]

Those are nice pics, way to go!  I've taken some astro-pics myself, it's a fun hobby and I've done my own marriage of Astronomy with this arcade hobby by putting my own photos into my marquee .

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=83998.msg878588#msg878588

[jasonbar]

Wow, Loafmeister--you've clearly got a nice setup there--I'll try the wife's new 10MP Canon point & shoot camera next--that should produce some better shots!

Thanks,
-Jason

[Loafmeister]

With the standard point and shoot, you can do great stuff with planets and the moon. Keep taking pics, that’s a great start!

I gotta get going on my astro-imaging page someday...

[jasonbar]

The Space Invaders telescope doubles as a swell solar eclipse projector!

http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Space%20Invaders%20Telescope/solar%20eclipse%205-23-2012/?start=all

-Jason

[Afterburner]

Nice Dob mount!

I've got an older Meade 6" reflector on an EQ mount.  But it is so heavy and difficult to move around that I rarely use it.

I've been considering building a Dob mount for it....maybe this will give me the inspiration I need.

[Gray_Area]

At least I caught the elderlyness of the thread within three posts.

[TopJimmyCooks]

 TopJimmy reviews the tape and rules- NO Necropsy.  Bumped by the OP with relevant new info.  Proceed with play.