GSO RC - any news?

[amoeba]

I saw a snip-it from Bintel in the latest Sky&Tel, but the web seems to be very quite about any further details. I don't think Astronomics have started shipping their RC's (which I assume are the GSO ones?).

Was wondering if anyone had some inside knowledge or gossip? :whistle:

[monoxide]

andrews says the 8" RC is due in soon, no idea when that is though.
ill be very interested in the first light report of whoever goes first :P

[TrevorW]

Bintel are currently advertising the 6 and 8, and talk of a 10 as well the 6 and 8 go for $1700 and $3300 thereabouts.

[Tilt]

Andrews has a GSO container on the way to Aust (a couple of weeks away), with random GSO goodies. Maybe there will be a GSO RC in this shipment.

[jase]

These are horrendously low scary prices....$3300 for the 8" RC. You sure that you don't get shipped a box full of parts in which you need to build and grind your own hyperbolic mirror. $3300 would probably buy you a quarter of a star instruments secondary.

That said, there are some interesting items (possibilities) coming out of Asia of late...http://www.intane-optics.com/products/product-hyperbolic-mirror-hm001.html

[marki]

The star instrument mirrors are @ 1/24 wave aren't they??? Still I guess I could suffer a 460mm hyperbolic mirror with measley 1/20 wave optics at chinese prices...... now what did I do with that carbon mast I had lying around.....:D

[Satchmo]

Star Instruments quote 1/20 RMS 1/4 wavefront on their website. This is ample quality for an instrument with large central obstruction that is designed for deep sky imaging at prime focus not high magnification planetary work.

[AlexN]

GSO 8" RC-200SDX advertised at Bintel @ $2499..

Just thought I'd throw that in...

[Gama]

I agree here, and this is why i believe the prices are much lower than other manufacturers, of course not taking into account the lower prices you already get from China.
All you require is PV 1/4 wavefront error, as was said, so less time is spent getting the surface to a higher degree, which you will not see in real life anyway due to atmosheperic seeing.

Theo.

[Satchmo]

Its not so much a matter of atmospheric seeing. Even in poor seeing a better mirror will have more moments of sharp detail for planetary viewing. The point is that at prime focus deep sky imaging you don't have enough image scale to differentiate between a 1/4 wave wavefront and 1/10 wavefront optics. Planetary imagers typically use effective focal lengths of 10 meters or more to exploit the quality of their mirrors.

The other issue is central obstruction. A high quality 0.95 Strehl optic set and a mediochre one ( say 0.8 Strehl ) are both degraded to the low 70's and mid 60's Strehl ratio by a 45% obstruction...

That is not to diminish the task of making a truly 1/4 wave wavefront RC optical system. These mirrors would be much more strongly aspheric than your standard Dob mirrors. If they can actually pull this off at that price it will be a modern marvel of the marriage between technology and cheap labour.

[davewaldo]

Looks like Bintel will be offering this scope for $2499. Thats a bit cheaper than expected.

www.bintelshop.com.au

[AlexN]

two posts to late :) ^^^^

[davewaldo]

Doh! :doh:

[Tilt]

Now showing up on Andrews.

http://www.andrewscom.com.au/site-section-10.htm