Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone
Carlton, I think these scopes were under-appreciated for a long time.
What sparked my interest originally were the lunar images at the Astronominsk website which shows these were in a whole different league to SCTs and subsequently getting in touch with Randy Payne - the original owner of the Santel Alex now has - and realising this was something special, optically. When Randy decided to sell I was aware it was a unique opportunity, as the scope had been in an observatory in a desert in Utah and in near mint condition after 15 years. There were just 28 MK91 made, and I located 4 of them. One of those has been sold in the UK in the past 5 years.
Another MK91 was apparently dropped and the remains (corrector and primary) sold on CN as a fixer-upper, as Alex knows; the buyer (who has a machine shop) is having a new secondary made by Lockwood and attempting to rebuild a new OTA from the Santel drawings. A real labour of love and I hope he ends up with a nice scope out of it.
As for the rest... vanished.
Your M715D is a baby brother, treasure what you have, that is a very fine scope.
Over the past few years I’ve located three other big intes maks - one 8” in the UK, one in US, and a 10” intes (!) in the US.
APM sold the last 11” in mid 2019; a 16” APM/Intes is owned by a CN member plus the 16” Markus Ludes has.
And APM has a 20” for sale, in case you have won Lotto; that is probably the third largest mak ever built.
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Thanks Nick, I certainly will treasure it.. I know that I was extremely fortunate to acquire it through a sequence of events that none of us anticipated...
Unfortunately, since it arrived in the week prior to my fusion surgery I only had one very, very patchy opportunity to catch a glimpse of a few objects. Subsequently, my surgery has put my three favourite hobbies completely off the list of things I'm allowed to do for a few months so, I have not as yet had the opportunity to appreciate just how good it is.... I am looking forward immensely to Feb/Mar next year when my surgeon my let me actually do something other than sit & recuperate & I can finally start to use the Intes for the main purpose I acquired it for, planetary & lunar observing... I'm salivating at the prospect actually......
Cheers
Carlton