Re: Meade's new RCX400 scopes in May S&T

From: matt (electro_optic_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 03/30/05 

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:36:40 -0500

Chris L Peterson wrote in message ...
>On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:08:06 -0500, RichA <none@none.com> wrote:
>
>>Not to the cranks. You start talking about the suitability of the SCT
>>mounts or optics for photography and they come back with nonsense
>>like, "but, if you look at the star images at the micron scale..."
>>Most people see astro images on fixed-sized computer screens or in
>>magazines with 300dpi resolution and 3" x 3" pictures at best.
>
>Modern SCT optics are excellent- they seldom limit image quality with
>CCDs. Top end fork mounts from both Meade and Celestron are borderline
>for imaging- generally adequate, but often a good deal of tweaking is
>necessary to get good results.
>
>If the RCX400 does not have a substantially better quality mount than
>the LX200, I don't think it will be worth the price.
>
>_________________________________________________
>
>Chris L Peterson
>Cloudbait Observatory
>http://www.cloudbait.com

your statement might not be completely accurate , don't forget that CCD's
are getting larger. I don't think there's any commercial SCT that would not
vignette with the largest amateur astro ccd chips in use today , not to
mention the flat field that's required with such large chips. Eye openers,
larger visual backs (A-P, or Starizona) work to the extent that they're
opening the full 2" but the Meade/Celestron field flatteners are less than
2" clear aperture, and the darn baffle tubes are the ultimate obstacle . If
Meade added just a little extra to the baffle diameter and it's larger than
2" in the RCX400, then that might be reason enough to use it with the larger
ccd's, regardless of the mount performance (which might have to be tweaked
if OTA is inseparable from mount due to intertwined electronics) .

best regards,
matt tudor

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