That's great! The motorized stage assembly used the PRMTZ8 rotating stages. The telescope used the CS165MU monochrome camera. For the full components list, please refer to the video description or github link of the Design Files for this project below: github.com/Thorlabs/Insights_and_Applications/tree/main/Tracking%20Solar%20Telescope/Design%20Files Most of our apochromatic lens designs are objective lenses. Something to consider for this application is that you could use a narrow bandpass filter to reduce the chromatic aberration if you plan to use a monochrome camera. If you have a specific application or design requirement, please feel free to contact Tech Support.
Thank you for your comment, we're glad you enjoyed the video! The bracket was printed in PETG using a Prusa Mini+, but should be printable on most consumer filament 3D printers.
Thank you for your comment! This approach is certainly overly cautious and is more critical in setups using high power or high power densities from focused light. These filters are designed to absorb optical power and dissipate the absorbed energy as heat. Thermal lensing can occur with higher power densities, and eventually the filter will fail as the absorbed power increases.
@@thorlabsThe IR laser would be rigidly attached to the CMOS / optics assembly; for example on top of it. Then using a combo of 45d mirrors / beam splitter, you could align the beam back with the main axis of the optics. A prism at a distance would reflect back some IR light. Reflection would appear as a dot on the CMOS. You could then computed the x/y offset of that dot centroid rel to CMOS center and feed these offsets as your control error to the PIDs driving your motors.
It would help to use green or red band pass filter instead of one of ND filters. Achromatic doublets will have horrible aberrations outside of corrected range, if camera has AR-window (instead of IR-cut) it will be sensitive from ~300nm to 1050nm, where light from 300 to 430 and 700 to 1050 will significantly degrade contrast of small features... In solar observations in astronomy it is common practice to place reflective red bandpass or IR-cut filter as far from camera as possible (preferably before objective lens) - this simplifies thermal management alot.
Thank you for your comment, this is valuable feedback! In this case, the ND filters used in the video are designed for the visible range (400-700 nm). For these specific filters, their UV absorption is even higher than the visible range but will have reduced optical density between 700 - 1050 nm. You are correct that we could have lower imaging resolution due to the out of band performance of the achromat, but we found the resolution was adequate to image sun spots and record the eclipse. We will definitely take a look at using bandpass filters for the next event.
As a customer of Thor labs (mostly for microscopy stuff LOL) these videos are super gems! I think I'm going to be building this!
We're glad you appreciate our videos; be sure to share with us on social media if you decide to build this!
@@thorlabs will do!
Very cool. I'd like to build one. Does Thor Labs have apochromatic lenses in this diameter? Which motorized rotation stages did you use? Which camera?
That's great! The motorized stage assembly used the PRMTZ8 rotating stages. The telescope used the CS165MU monochrome camera. For the full components list, please refer to the video description or github link of the Design Files for this project below:
github.com/Thorlabs/Insights_and_Applications/tree/main/Tracking%20Solar%20Telescope/Design%20Files
Most of our apochromatic lens designs are objective lenses. Something to consider for this application is that you could use a narrow bandpass filter to reduce the chromatic aberration if you plan to use a monochrome camera. If you have a specific application or design requirement, please feel free to contact Tech Support.
What a handsome guide ❤
What 3D printer was used for the adapter bracket? Really interesting video!
Thank you for your comment, we're glad you enjoyed the video! The bracket was printed in PETG using a Prusa Mini+, but should be printable on most consumer filament 3D printers.
The configuration of the neutral density filters was something I've never considered! Not that I've ever needed to...
Thank you for your comment! This approach is certainly overly cautious and is more critical in setups using high power or high power densities from focused light. These filters are designed to absorb optical power and dissipate the absorbed energy as heat. Thermal lensing can occur with higher power densities, and eventually the filter will fail as the absorbed power increases.
Now i know why I haven't gone back to Edmund LOL.
Could you show us how to track a laser lite prism too ? It would be a really cool project
Thank you for the suggestion! Could you give us some more information about a laser lite prism?
@@thorlabsThe IR laser would be rigidly attached to the CMOS / optics assembly; for example on top of it. Then using a combo of 45d mirrors / beam splitter, you could align the beam back with the main axis of the optics. A prism at a distance would reflect back some IR light. Reflection would appear as a dot on the CMOS. You could then computed the x/y offset of that dot centroid rel to CMOS center and feed these offsets as your control error to the PIDs driving your motors.
Thank you for the application suggestion and additional details. We'll add it to our list!
It would help to use green or red band pass filter instead of one of ND filters. Achromatic doublets will have horrible aberrations outside of corrected range, if camera has AR-window (instead of IR-cut) it will be sensitive from ~300nm to 1050nm, where light from 300 to 430 and 700 to 1050 will significantly degrade contrast of small features... In solar observations in astronomy it is common practice to place reflective red bandpass or IR-cut filter as far from camera as possible (preferably before objective lens) - this simplifies thermal management alot.
Thank you for your comment, this is valuable feedback! In this case, the ND filters used in the video are designed for the visible range (400-700 nm). For these specific filters, their UV absorption is even higher than the visible range but will have reduced optical density between 700 - 1050 nm. You are correct that we could have lower imaging resolution due to the out of band performance of the achromat, but we found the resolution was adequate to image sun spots and record the eclipse. We will definitely take a look at using bandpass filters for the next event.
Impressive..It's inspiring me to try to this
Thank you for your comment! If you do, be sure to share with us on social media!