The Telescopes
The new Cassegrain telescope is the prototype of the Phillip Keller and ASA collaboration and consist of a 400mm LOMO mirror set, with two Keller correctors in both focusers f3 and f9. They doesn't change the focal lenght of the optical basic system.
Covered against occasional stray light at night from one neighbour... in our house the light is turned off...
The Intes MN61 f6 900/150mm, a Maksutow Newton, is a russian masterpiece. Its quality resembles an apochromatic version of about the same aperture.
The frontview of MN61, the typical corrector lens with the very small obstructing (19%) secondary mirror/base. One of the secrets of its incredible contrast and sharpness all over the field.
The Orion ED80 f7.5 600/80mm refractor, before the modifications.
The modified ED80. The refractor tube was shortened by about 50mm, in order to allow the binoviewer, flip mirror and eyepieces to come into focus. The color was changed by airbrushing and the focuser was refurbished.
Here on the picture it is mounted as a guiding scope, so it is fixed on the top of the MN61 by a ring system of AOK-Swiss, made by Beat Kohler. This system can slide back and force, thereby adjusting the neccessary balance of the heavy setup.
On top of the ED80, a small finderscope/Tal 8x (russia), facilitates the widefield observation of potential guiding stars. The weight of the setup is, taken together with the ED100 and baseplate, in a range of about 40-50 kg.
The MN61 received a new NGF-DX1 focuser, which is controlled via the Smartfocus system and a seriell PC connection to MaximDL. The ED80 focuser is motorized as well.
The Pentax 75/500mm refractor. It was tested right out of the box with the TeleVue Panoptic 41mm... now my first choice for mobile observation tours, definitely. The refractor itself contains next to the ED lens a flattener corrector lens and generates pinpoint sharp stars in (60x40)mm format.
The telescope received a small TS-finder. It improves the comfortable finding of objects in the photography setup.
A close-up.
The highly corrected optic, over a wide field, makes it suitable especially for the astofotographie. It is equipped with the Canon 400D (astroversion), an electric focuser and L-RGB Atik filterwheel. A Mini-Laptop with MaximDL5 allows the fully automated capturing of pictures (more details AstroCanon400D Mobilesets ).
The Pentax refractor was equipped with a selfmade focuser. The focuser is a mix of a gearbox (Conrad electronic) a minimotor coupled to gearbox and some toothed wheels. The gear transmission ratio is very high, which generates a high force and very slow motion. It is triggered by an MotoFocus Controller or by the Shoestring encoder and MaximDL5 software in autofocus mode.
The skywatcher ED100 f10 900/100mm refractor, before the modifications.
This skywatcher ED100 was darkened inside by airbrushing with blackboard color. The original focuser was replaced by a highly precise feathertough focuser and finally motorized. The front dewcap was shortened to reduce possible local tube seeing pointing to the sun. The scope is exclusively used for solar H-alpha observations. It is highly corrected and thereby nearly perfect in the range of red wavelenghts. For a detailed test please follow this link Mr.Rohr ED100 Skywatcher
The 2 Zoll stiff feathertouch was blackened inside by airbrushing, which resulted finally in no reflection at all. What a quality...
Taking advantage of the innovative Gryzbowski Kollimator , all telescopes had been adjusted with high precision after their modifications. No laserkolli (pointer ;-)) will go so far...sorry. I recommend to collimate the telescopes after each rough transportation.
