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Old 18-03-2016, 08:50 PM
ausastronomer (John Bambury)
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Shoalhaven Heads, NSW
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos View Post
From memory the DK design works with two hyperbolic mirrors as opposed to having a parabolic primary on the SCT. The CDK also has a corrector (possibly in front of the secondary??).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Somnium View Post
Hi Colin,

the CDK has a parabolic primary and a spherical secondary. the corrector lives just in front of the focuser so basically smack in the middle of the primary mirror itself.
Hi Colin and Aidan,

Neither of these are correct. By definition a Dall Kirkham uses a concave elipsoidal primary mirror and a convex spherical secondary mirror. If a telescope has some mirror configuration other than this it isn't a Dall Kirkham. A Corrected Dall Kirkham introduces a sub aperture refractive corrector, to correct off axis aberrations inherent in the standard Dall Kirkham design. The corrector I believe is likely to be a 3 element modified Wynne Corrector.

For those interested the following Cassegrain Telescope Designs have the following mirror configurations:-

Schmidt Cassegrain = Spherical Primary and Spherical Secondary with a full aperture Schmidt Corrector Plate

Maksutov Cassegrain = Spherical Primary and Spherical Secondary with a full aperture Maksutov Corrector Plate.

Houghton Cassegrain = Spherical primary and Spherical Secondary with a full aperture Houghton corrector which is a multi element corrector. Unlike the Schmidt and Maksutov correctors which are single element.

Classical Cassegrain = Parabolic Primary with a Hyperbolic Secondary. A Classical Cassegrain will often have a Newtonian focus point in addition to the Cassegrain focus point where the hyperbolic secondary is swapped out for a diagonal flat.

Dall Kirkham = Ellipsoidal Primary and Spherical Secondary

Press Carmichael = Spherical primary and Ellipsoidal Secondary

Ritchey Chretien = Hyperbolic Primary and Hyperbolic Secondary

Cheers,
John B
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