patent

Raghunath Manohar

Manipal Institute of Technology

The Indianoffice has granted patent to the invention ofof, Manipal University. His invention, “A multi lens system which is a microscope and a component of a telescope” was approved recently. He had applied for it in 2009, and is the only inventor of the device. Earlier he had received a US patent for “Marking Gauge”, for which too, he was a sole inventor.Providing details about the invention Manohar, deputy engineer (lab), department of Mechanical and Manufacturing MIT said that the telescope has nine lens which form the erecting lens system using nine biconvex lenses of same focal length and diameter 10 cm and 50 mm respectively. The optical system in the apparatus has eight PVC tubes of the required size. This is called the distance tube pieces. The above are slid into a slightly larger PVC container pipe having a collar at one end with a hole at the centre to view the image.This housing tube has external screw threads cut on it in order to focus and see distant objects clearly. This container tube is now the erecting eyepiece cum compound microscope. To use this as a telescope another bigger tube was used as an objective lens with larger diameter and focal length of 110 mm and 210 cms. This is called the objective tube. This objective tube is fixed to the container tube housing the 9 lens erecting lens system. Thus this now functions as a telescope.Manohar says that this invention has certain advantages over existing microscopes and telescopes: It has a wider field of view about three times of existing ones; It can be used as a compound microscope of 80 X while some existing ones in addition to giving inverted image give 10 x magnification only when used as a simple microscope; This can be made using locally available lenses and PVC pipes.