Diagram of the telescope rotor and housing

The above diagram shows what I’m building. It is red and green completely by coincidence. The rotor is a very thin, 14″ diameter aluminum wheel with a small window to let light through. Essentially it is a very small aperture shutter. It will be spinning at 7200rpm inside of a thick aluminum housing that will dampen noise and vibration as well as protect users from the disk spinning inside. The eyepiece and objective lens will go on either side of the housing.

The Mill

Beginning to cut the rotor

The mill is a WWII era Bridgeport, a massive iron monster that will cut just about anything, so it had no problem with the thin aluminum. The main problem is that there weren’t many tools at the shop. I ran into some problems because there wasn’t a way of taking precision measurements, and so let’s just say things didn’t line up quite right.

Making chips with the bearing housing

Finishing up the disk

All in all, it was a successful Christmas in the machine shop. The rotor seems to be very well balanced and most of the difficult cuts and layout are complete for the housing. What remains to be done are small pieces — the bearing housings, motor mount, and optical assembly.

And then of course there’s the motor driver circuit that’s in pieces on the workbench at home. Some of those pieces are charred bits of plastic.

Happy 2011 everyone!

But my goal all along was to make a flicker telescope — an optical device through which a viewer could see this flickering with their own eyes. I’ve made strides in this direction but there’s still much to do.

Soon I’ll be setting up camp in a machine shop to create and assemble the physical and optical components. With some hard work and lots of luck, the telescope will be ready for the new year!

The microprocessor in action.

This fall I made substantial headway in getting the microprocessor to interface with the motor and motor driver. It accurately reads the speed of the motor and is ready to drive the powerful switches that will control the speed of the motor.

500W power supply, complete and ready for testing!

On the other hand, the power supply and motor driver have been difficult to keep working. This summer I had the power supply fully operational, but it overheated during testing and I have been wrestling with it ever since.

The motor driver to be.

This month, I’m assembling and testing the motor driver.

60Hz Telescope allows us to see the flickering slowed to a human speed. My intent in creating the telescope is to challenge the way we see the world, to animate the static and the everyday, and to reveal beauty that is just out of sight.

In addition to the films of the flickering that are now on YouTube and Vimeo, the telescope will perform LIVE in locations all over NYC this summer. In a few months we will begin collecting suggestions and votes for performance locations at this website so stay tuned. (You can follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.)

But there’s a long way still to go!
Here’s what it can do so far. Not terribly impressive.

Here are the bits so far:

A beefy little motor that will run the high speed shutter at 7200rpm.

A tiny microcontroller to run everything.

And as of this weekend now it can spell its name.

One shows flickering shot in Europe this winter. Maybe because Europe’s flickering is a little slower (it’s only 50Hz over there), or maybe because of the beautiful scenery these are some of the most striking examples of flickering I’ve been able to capture. Make sure you watch all the way through — Venice at the end is my favorite. Watch Europe flicker here.

The other films are short collections of shots: one is from an evening recently on a building overlooking Ground Zero with stunning views on the construction site there, as well as of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and the uptown skyline. The other is shots of transportation landmarks in NYC, all of which flicker in beautiful ways. Watch transportation flicker here. Watch the skyline flicker here.

Enjoy!

This film shows beautiful footage of the flickering recorded with a high speed photographic camera, Nikon’s D3s. When complete, the telescope will slow the flickering even more and will reveal more detail.

But with the telescope you will not need a camera or a computer to see the flickering.

The 60Hz Telescope will reveal the flickering LIVE in New York City this summer.