Meade Instruments, Star Instruments and RC Optical Systems Agree to Settlement

[turbo_pascale]

Was just made aware of this press release from January 10.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/wires?id=113518392&c=y

So all of you RCX and LX200R owners have to remove your stickers and get some new ones with whatever they are going to be called now!

Maybe we could come up with some new suggestions of what to call the scopes?

[MikeyB]

From the BinTel website (more up to date than Meade's own US corporate site!):

Advanced f/10 Coma Free Optics: The LX200-ACF was designed by Meade's top optical engineers to perform just like a Ritchey-Chrétien telescope . The Ritchey-Chrétien, or RC optical design, is well known to discerning astrophotographers and is the telescope optical design in many of the leading professional observatories of the world. The LX200-ACF is the perfect platform for the demanding researcher and imaging enthusiast delivering star images free of coma right to the edge of the field. Meade's industry leading techniques in figuring large aspheric corrector plates allowed Meade's engineers to reduce astigmatism and eliminates diffraction spikes in the new LX200-ACF compared to the traditional RC design.

and

Optical Design: Advanced Coma Free Aplanatic Cassegrain

While the top of the range RCX400 becomes the LX400-ACF.

[snowyskiesau]

Details of the settlement are on the RC Optical site:

http://www.rcopticalsystems.com/FactsofCase04.html

[rumples riot]

Well that was coming. An RC has a hybolic mirror and the supposed R versions from Meade don't. In fact optically they are completely different. Maybe they can get back to making scopes now.

[Ric]

Interesting, I now own an "ACF".:P

I suppose it really doesn't matter what Meade decide to call it in the end, I still reckon it's a great scope and I'm very happy with it.:thumbsup:

Cheers:)

[Satchmo]

Well this `win' by Star Instruments and all the premium RC makers will all seem kind of inconsequential when the flood of Chinese made Ritchey Chretien 'scopes hit the market in the next 12 months. Even the Meade ACF scopes will be using Chinese made optics in the near future.

[citivolus]

Well, that statement sure doesn't follow the spirit of the settlement. That second sentence would seem to me to be intended to imply that it uses Ritchey-Chétien optics.

I smell round 2 if this is the official Meade marketing line.

[OneOfOne]

I agree, the RC design has certain basic characteristics that make it an RC. Just like a Newt. If someone has a Newtonian design scope, you know pretty much what it looks like without seeing it! If a Newtonian was changed to have an optically flat plate on the front (not a corrector as in a Schmidt-Newtonian) to hold the secondary and therefore bypass the need for a spider, the design would no longer be, to me at least, a Newtonian. In the Meade case, they have a corrector that holds the secondary whilst an RC has a spider. This alone is enough to say they are a different design even to "the man in the street". I think if you showed an RC and an ACF to a hundred people, none of them would say there were the "same".

Of course, none of this argument should detract from the quality achievable with the ACF design. In hindsight, I think they should have just not put the "R" in the name.

[mlcolbert]

putting aside the quality of the telescope and how effective they are for people who have bought the meade, the situation does have other ramifications in a business sense.
ie meade cannot pay attention to detail and integrity and will do anything to improve market share to make a profit. Ok that's U.S. business. (as well as in other countries). Then they have the problem of the Coronado, hhmmmm...two strikes as they say.

I wouldn't consider purchasing anything from meade given the current state of the company and its actions. As a matter of fact, I have put my money where my mouth is and chosen to acquire out of production zeiss equipment, rather than return to celestron or purchase a meade.

Maybe, and this is a big maybe, that with the Chines manufacturers and companies like RCOS, SBIG, ASTELCO etc which specialise in high end equipment and the encroaching recession in the U.S. etc then possibly companies such as celestron and meade and others are going to either have to merge to survive or will be lost to the market.

The bottom line for me is this; trust is imperative in business and meade have broken the implicit trust with the consumer.

michael

[Valmir]

what company would you recommended buying form then?

[g__day]

A slight aside - given the common claim of apo grade optics - on ED refractors - its interest to see Takahashi coin the term ortho apochoramatic for their line - meaning true colour correctness - even if slightly out of focus either way - that's impressive!

[Peter Ward]

I think Meade were always going to loose this one. The RC design proposed by American astronomer George Ritchey and French Astronomer Henri Chrétien in the early 1910s is very specific.

I suspect the S&T gallery & APOD images produced by astro-photographers such as Gendler, Croman & Verschatse etc. were a little too irresistible for the marketing guru's at Meade not to get a piece of.

There are very few commercial RC makers on planet earth at present. The “coma-free” Schmidt-Cassegrain design Meade employed was first published in the early 60’s by Ronald Willey in Sky & Telescope magazine....and has merit...but is not an RC....and it looks like the lawyers agreed...

As to whether we will see cheap Chinese RC's....well...maybe...then again maybe not...as while they are making some excellent smaller optics, I have yet to see anything that is "top shelf" in larger apertures...and won't be selling any of my current imaging ensemble for a "bigger-better-cheaper" solution just yet ;)

[Kal]

I think Takahashi's use of ortho apochromatic has more to do with differentiating it from a regular triplet apochromat through it's use of two fluoro-glass elements, compared to the common triplet apo's use of one fluoro-glass or fluorite element.

With regard to the Apo claim on ED Apo refractors - most of them will meet the requirements of visual astronomers. It is not until you start using them photographically that you will really start to notice a big difference as you need colour correction across a far broader spectrum.

[g__day]

The point is APO's surely aren't targeted at visual astronomers! Colour correctness is a stringent requirement of astro-photographers - meaning apo - optics. Its annoying marketers can diminish the term apo into near apo or apo like. To me colour correctness is a binary statement - it is or isn't, and if its not - then it fails by a certain grade - I wish that failure was noted and reported as within X detla of colour correctness.

Being nearly apo is like being nearly pregnant.

[space oddity]

I see winners all round. Discerning astronomers will come accross the "real thing" (when they get the money) perhaps after buying the Meade scope first. I have an LX 200 R , which I reckon is better than a regular LX 200. At least Meade is making an effort to make a mass produced affordable scope with good optics:thumbsup:.The" real thing "is a niche item which will only ever be bought by the most discerning(and well heeled) , who would not be buying a Meade as a long term scope anyway. The use of "Ritchey Cretien" on Meade scopes will probably act to wet the appetite of potential customers. All of the quality optics debate is irrelevant with the crap weather :mad2:- my fake RC has not had a decent outing for ages , perhaps it is being punished for its deception !:lol:

[h0ughy]

I notice that Meade have not changed their website with the model names or descriptions

[Stephen65]

Meade were always going to lose this one, their description of a non-RC scope as an "advanced" RC scope was never going to hold up in Court. That they even tried to do this is disappointing from a business ethics point of view.

I suspect there will be more litigation if Meade now try to say it performs "just like" an RC. It clearly doesn't, it has chromatic aberration due to the corrector plate and considerably "blobbier" stars according to the dot patterns I have seen. What it really is is an improved SCT and it should be marketed as such.

As for APO's, colour correction is a question of degree. There is no such thing as a completely colour-free refractor and I don't know any modern APO that meets the original strict definition of an apochromatic scope. APO's, or near-APO's or semi-APO's are desirable for visual as well as photography. Colour-free, or at least colour-reduced, viewing is attractive for its own sake on bright objects and you get improved resolution and constrast because light is not being "smeared" across the focus point as in an achro.

[Satchmo]

I have it on good authority from a friend in the retail industry that 10" RC's from China are imminent. If they can make '0.8 Strehl' smaller RC optics as Star Instruments supply to the high end RC scope makers , they will sell in droves.

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Yep, I put money on Meade loosing this one very early in the piece too. The future, in this instance, was waaay too easy to prophesy into.

No, it isn't a matter of them being "Meade".

No, it isn't a matter of the merits of the "RCX" design. As Peter and others noted above, the design certainly has merit -- of that there is no doubt.

Yes, it _is_ definitely a matter of the definition of what constitutes a Ritchey-Chrétien optical design, or for that matter an "advanced" Ritchey-Chrétien. Leaving aside the merits of the RCX design (well, someone elses design), no matter which way you look at it, it ain't an R/C by definition. You can't take a spud, dye it orange and call it an advanced pumpkin!

Chinese R/Cs coming in droves? If nothing else, this will prove very interesting indeed. I wonder how well they will execute it and if they do, what effect that will have on the market?

Hmmm ... not so easy to prophesy into!


Best,

Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T