Amateur Telescope Making
How to make a Ronchi Screen
Contributed by Clint Bach
You can easily make your own Ronchi screens .
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Take two strips of dimensionally stable material about 3/4" wide
and 3/4" or more long. Drill matching holes in the two strips of
material about 3/8" in diameter and tape the two strips together.
I used 3/4" by 1 1/2" 1/8" extruded aluminium with
3/8" holes for my Ronchi screens. Note: The material and the
dimensions are not critical.
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CAREFULLY wrap
TWO strands of monofilament fishing line around both pieces of
taped together Ronchi screen material. Make sure the monofilament is
not crossed and is evenly wrapped around the future screens with no
gaps between the strands. You only have to wrap enough line around the
future screens to cover the hole.
-
CAREFULLY unwrap one of the strands of
monofilament.
-
Glue the remaining strand of monofilament securely in place.
-
Cut the strands of monofilament between the two screens and you have
two matching Ronchi screens.
I first tried making screens this way with fine wire and was not happy
with the results. The wire will kink while being wrapped and monofilament
won't. The monofilament is tough and very forgiving to bad handling.
The surface of the monofilament is much smoother than wire. Clear
monofilament is OK. Some monofilament is labled with its diameter. (1.5
pound is about .004 inch which makes about a 125 line per inch screen)
Different thicknesses of line make different screens!
Since there is no substrate to look through (glass or plastic) there is
no distortion caused by the substrate. The lines are perfectly straight.
Well if not perfectly straight I'll bet you can't measure the
imperfection!
Advantages:
-
You can have a Ronchi screen in just a few hours instead of days if you
have to order one.
-
These Ronchi screens give superior performance (in my opinion).
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