Meade RCX telescope design - Is it based on the Palomar 60-inch?

From: George Normandin (georgepn_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 02:12:31 GMT

The following document may be of interest to those pondering the question of
the true optical nature of the Meade RCX telescope design. Is the Meade
design a variation of the Palomar 60-inch RC Cass, which as a Schmidt-type
corrector?

George Normandin

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From: "Horace Bab*** and the Inception of Las Campanas Observatory"

By Dr. Arthur H. Vaughan, May 21, 2004

Prepared for a Memorial Symposium honoring Horace W. Bab*** at CalTech.

.....

In 1966... it happened that Ira Bowen (Director of Mt Wilson & Palomar
Observatories) received the prestigious George Darwin Award of the Royal
Astronomical Society, and in October delivered his George Darwin Lecture,
entitled Future Tools of the Astronomer, at Burlington House, London. I
recall being in the audience at Dr. Bowen's lecture. I had been privileged
to work very closely with Bowen in helping to analyze optical tests of the
Palomar 60-inch telescope then being built, and I took pains to read his
paper. It expounded Bowen's view that survey telescopes having large fields
of view would be important for the future of observational astronomy. The
Palomar 60-inch, designed by Bowen and Rule, was an early step in that
direction, utilizing a Schmidt-type corrector in the converging beam to
correct the astigmatism of a Ritchey-Chrétién system.

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