Abergele inventor awarded telescope design gold medal

An inventor and a north Wales college have combined to win an international award for their telescope design.

Peter Wise from Abergele, Conwy, and Coleg Llandrillo Cymru won a gold medal at the Geneva Inventors' Fair.

Mr Wise, 63, worked with the Denbighshire college's Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) to design what they say is a low price, high quality, lightweight telescope.

They say it has won interest from the surveillance and birdwatching markets.

An avid astronomer, Mr Wise explained that he built his own 8 in (20cm) refracting telescope, but ran into difficulty funding its production.

He then turned his attention to creating a novel 80mm (3.5 in) refracting telescope weighing under 1kg (2lb) that he said would on average cost 50% less than the market leaders.

After making the initial designs and an experimental prototype, Mr Wise approached Ian Thompson at TIC and the pair worked together to turn his design into reality.

When the telescope was exhibited at the Inventors Show in Geneva, Switzerland, the judges were impressed with its optical performance and awarded Mr Wise a gold medal.

"We are delighted," said Mr Wise, a former industrial chemist, who is now aiming to move into production with the telescope by the end of the year.

"Inventions Geneva is probably the foremost exhibition in the world for inventors. It does have a lot of cachet."

"It was a pleasure to be able to turn Peter's ideas into a physical prototype," said Mr Thompson.