How to Make a Yardstick Telescope

Searching for an easy craft idea for you and your child that is both fun and educational? Nothing quite captures a child's imagination like the star-filled night sky...so why not try making your very own yardstick telescope? Even though it's inexpensive and homemade, it will still make the moon appear larger--and amazingly close! Here's how it's done.

Things You'll Need

• 1 inexpensive thin convex lens
• 1 inexpensive thick convex lens
• 2 lens holders
• Yardstick
• Super glue
• Wire

Instructions

How to Make a Yardstick Telescope

1. Go to an optometry store and purchase two inexpensive lenses: a thin convex lens and a thick convex lens. While there, also purchase two lens holders.

2. Fit your lenses into their holders.

3. Turn a yardstick edge up. Use the side with the 0 on it as the "eye side." Use the side with the 36 on it as the "far side," or the side furthest from your eye.

4. Apply a single drop of super glue on the top edge of the far side, about two inches from the end, near the 34. Press the thin lens (now inside its lens holder) into the glue and hold it in place until the glue's grip on the bottom of the lens holder is firm. The lens should be standing straight up, perpendicular to the edge of the yardstick.

5. Wire the thick lens near the number 2. Don't wire it too tight--it's fun to be able to slide the lens back and forth slightly in order to adjust your view. Your yardstick telescope is complete.

6. Hold the telescope up to your eye. Your line of sight should pass directly through both lenses--the thick lens near your eye and the thin lens at the other end of the yardstick. Now, go look at the moon!

Tips & Warnings

• Your telescope needn't be limited to astronomical observation; use it the way you might employ binoculars during the day.

• Even after the super glue has dried, your yardstick telescope will still be fragile, so handle with care.