Herschelian Schiefspiegler for the eclipse

I had a pretty cool building experience with the eclipse yesterday. We had eclipse safety glasses, but I thought there might be ways to view it with some magnification. And indeed there was! I wouldn't have been able to design it myself, but I gave Claude a list of likely pieces and tools I had on hand - we settled on a 133 mm f/8 mirror, a 2x Barlow, a 3d printer and some carbon rods, to build a Herschelian Schiefspiegler projector. I supplied some measurements, Claude designed the parts in FreeCAD (that was mindblowing to watch), which I rushed through the 3d printer. Minutes before we had to leave, the last part was ready - printed at 175% speed...

At the observation site, lots of people came to take a look. The atmosphere during the eclipse was quite magical, and I think many who hadn't been able to get eclipse glasses were able to get a good look through the projection.

My kids also loved the build process. I myself couldn't believe going from a vague idea to fully built instrument in a couple of hours.

Edit: I put the files up on Github: [https://github.com/zantoku/herschelian-projector](https://github.com/zantoku/herschelian-projector)

Just as a disclaimer, I've edited the files since the original print (rubber band friction clamps on the rail attachments, some weight savings on the Barlow mount) but haven't had time yet to actually re-print. It should be an improvement over the original version, though!