Or would the tolerances needed in the hinged mirror make the whole thing unusable?
I was looking at modern “smart telescopes” recently and noticed some are sideways and wondered if that would be possible for a normal hobby Newtonian telescope.
Possible upsides:
- no tripod needed for use
- mirror is light so smaller motors can be used for movement
Possible downsides:
- maybe mirror flatness?
Surface imperfections and play in the hinge aside, this would not work as you might imagine. This configuration (as illustrated), on a flat surface, would only completely image the zenith. Put it on a mount and it would image whatever is directly above the flat mirror. As soon as you move the hinged mirror, those light rays that eventually would lead to the camera sensor will only go flying into the tube walls. The light doesn’t magically find its way to the parabolic mirror at any hinge position. A couple degrees around 45°, you would probably still get an image, but only at a 45° incline on the hinge would you get a complete image.
If you rotate the hinge to angle X above the horizon, light coming in from an altitude angle of 2X (=zenith angle of 90deg-2X) will get reflected to into horizontal rays inside the tube.
So you don’t need a mount with adjustable altitude angle - the hinge accomplishes that.