Anyone wanna speculate ...

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

on what new equipment and goodies we will see in teh next 24 months or so?

i am kinda hopein' for a Skywatcher 16" dob, or maybe even a really fast 18"

anyone else holding out for more stuff?

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

I see from the mag ads that Meade are offering a kind of all-in-one imaging scope - the ETX-LS - a GoTo scope with built in CCD camera.

I suspect we'll see more of this kind of stuff from Celestron and Skywatcher in the near future.

Doug

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

Originally Posted by dugnsuz

I see from the mag ads that Meade are offering a kind of all-in-one imaging scope - the ETX-LS - a GoTo scope with built in CCD camera.

I suspect we'll see more of this kind of stuff from Celestron and Skywatcher in the near future.

Doug

yes fella, i noticed that myself, saves it straight to an SD card !!

[Kal (Andrew)]

Within the next two years the riccardi-honders cassegrain will be manufactured and released, bringing the biggest revolution to the industry since Meade and Celestron made Schmidt-Cassegrains popular*.



*May contain traces of nuts, and some mild speculation

[Zaps]

At what cost? The Meades and Celestrons were "revolutionary" because they were relatively affordable. Nobody has ever accused Astro-Physics of selling affordable kit. I'd be surprised if that's likely to change anytime soon.

Originally Posted by Kal

Within the next two years the riccardi-honders cassegrain will be manufactured and released, bringing the biggest revolution to the industry since Meade and Celestron made Schmidt-Cassegrains popular.

[TrevorW]

Andrews already advertised a 10" GSO RC

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Zaps

At what cost? The Meades and Celestrons were "revolutionary" because they were relatively affordable. Nobody has ever accused Astro-Physics of selling affordable kit. I'd be surprised if that's likely to change anytime soon.

Depends on who makes it, and how difficult it is to make. Just because Roland discussed the design concept at NEAF doesn't mean that Astro-Physics are the only people considering making it (and I honestly don't even know if they are considering making it) but one thing I know Roland did say was "You will soon see some of these being offered from various telescope makers."

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

Originally Posted by Kal

Depends on who makes it, and how difficult it is to make. Just because Roland discussed the design concept at NEAF doesn't mean that Astro-Physics are the only people considering making it (and I honestly don't even know if they are considering making it) but one thing I know Roland did say was "You will soon see some of these being offered from various telescope makers."

sounds good ...

can you explain the design for us lesser mortals?

[Kal (Andrew)]

It's hard to find information on it - but from what little I can find out it is a doublet BK7 lens, with the rear end of the second lens aluminised to make it a mirror. In a riccardi-honders you then go to a lens group to make an astrograph (you can buy them atm, A&M sells a 300mm F3 astrograph), so a riccardi-honders cassegrain would have much shallower curves going to a mirror secondary then to a second lens group then through the rear of the scope. You can make it at F8 with a small obstruction (26%).

[Robh (Rob)]

I'm waiting on a super-sensitive digital telescope camera I can just clip to an eyepiece on my DOB then simply focus and press the button to get an instant but fantastic image of something like the Sombrero. Anybody out there working on it?
Elephants can fly wish from Rob.

[PCH (Paul)]

Robh,

there was something just like this on a thread not so long ago - maybe four months or so.

It was a very fast scope, though in no way physically large. I know I'm a bit vague here so maybe someone else can help with details. Basically, being something like F3, it meant you could point it at your chosen neb or whatever through the goto system, and hey presto, an image in a few seconds rather than the 'hours' worth of data the guys here have to shoot.

This made it not even require tracking if I recall correctly, as it could gather enough light in 10 to 15 seconds such that it didn't need to track.

The link in the thread pointed us to a young girl of about 12 that had used it to produce some very respectable images.

But for some reason, the guys here (meaning the accomplished imagers - unlike myself !) didn't see it as a goer, and I can't for the life of me remember why.

Maybe someone else can recall more detail.

Cheers

[g__day (Matthew)]

A breakthrough in quantum materials optics giving better than diffraction limited viewing. Didn't New Scientist report on this about 15 months ago - a thin foil with millions of tiny quantum wells fabricated into it?

[Wavytone]

Brief summary of the Honders-Riccardi in Newtonian format. http://www.telescope-optics.net/hond...htm#minimizing

A cassegrain version would also be spectacularly well corrected, but I'd prefer a newtonian version around f/6-f/7.

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by PCH

Robh,

there was something just like this on a thread not so long ago - maybe four months or so.

It was a very fast scope, though in no way physically large. I know I'm a bit vague here so maybe someone else can help with details. Basically, being something like F3, it meant you could point it at your chosen neb or whatever through the goto system, and hey presto, an image in a few seconds rather than the 'hours' worth of data the guys here have to shoot.

This made it not even require tracking if I recall correctly, as it could gather enough light in 10 to 15 seconds such that it didn't need to track.

The link in the thread pointed us to a young girl of about 12 that had used it to produce some very respectable images.

But for some reason, the guys here (meaning the accomplished imagers - unlike myself !) didn't see it as a goer, and I can't for the life of me remember why.

Maybe someone else can recall more detail.

Cheers

Are you thinking of the Nexstar 6 with hyperstar?

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

Brief summary of the Honders-Riccardi in Newtonian format. http://www.telescope-optics.net/hond...htm#minimizing

A cassegrain version would also be spectacularly well corrected, but I'd prefer a newtonian version around f/6-f/7.

Cheers, I hadn't come across that page in my research, some good info there

[chris lewis]

There has been talk of a Synta ED 140 doublet with the usual FPL-53 glass.
It would be a 'semi' APO visually it you were going to keep the tube a reasonable length. There would be market for one. The Synta series has given APO type images at a reasoanble cost to the masses and a ED 140 would be great to finish the series off - an ED 150 even better but would be really speculating. !

Chris

[Robh (Rob)]

Kal (Andrew),
Had a look at the article from your link for the Honders-Riccardi Telescope. Lots of technical stuff but highlighted a few parts :
...no aberrations to speak of with a 300mm f/7.4 Honders-Riccardi variant.
What makes Honders telescope really stand out is its unsurpassed correction level.
This Honders-Riccardi system is also fairly tolerant to miscollimation.
Sounds great. If mass-produced, hopefully its price will be less than a kazillion dollars.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Metamaterials and hyperlens for better than diffraction limited optics

http://www.azooptics.com/Details.asp?NewsID=4060

Red-light metamaterials
Metamaterials make it possible to manipulate light on the nanoscale. They are nanostructured materials made of tiny metallic rings, rods, or strips arranged in such a way as to produce a negative index of refraction, or a situation unique to metamaterials when light is deflected away from an imaginary line passing perpendicularly between air and the material. This property in turn is expected to lead to novel optical devices, such as flat-panel lenses and hyperlenses. These lenses can be used to image objects with a spatial resolution smaller than the wavelength of the illuminating light source, thus circumventing the normal "diffraction limit," which says that a lens cannot produce an image with a spatial resolution better than approximately half the wavelength of the light used to make the image.


http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/...86/1/Hyperlens

Xiang Zhang and colleagues at the University of California in Berkeley are one of two groups that have independently created the first truly magnifying "superlenses". In theory, superlenses should be able to surpass the fundamental resolution limit that plagues all conventional optics by capturing special light waves that exist close to illuminated surfaces. However, until now superlenses had only been able to focus these waves, and not – crucially – magnify them.


The schematic below depicts Zhang's "hyperlens", which is another term for a superlens that spreads light in a hyperbolic shape. As light illuminates the lens, it is scattered off the inscribed object on the surface. Once the light enters, the nano-scale "metamaterial" structure guides the beams outward, forcing one component of the momentum to be compressed. By the time the light leaves the lens, it has been sufficiently magnified and "converted" so that it can travel up to a metre farther – far enough for a conventional microscope to pick up.

http://images.iop.org/objects/physic.../Hyperlens.jpg

[jase (Jason)]

Worm driven mounts will soon be a thing of the past, being replaced by direct drive technologies with high precision encoders performing read outs a hundred times a second. This technology has no periodic error or backlash. I noticed this trend at last years AIC conference where Chronos and ASA showed their wares... Unfortunately, these mounts are still quite expensive though this will change with time. It would not surprise me in the slightest that the Bisque brothers have something going on behind the scenes with this technology.

[Robh (Rob)]

Hi Tech Guru,
On Metamaterials and hyperlens for better than diffraction limited optics.

Sounds revolutionary. I gather the immediate use will be for microscopes. What is your opinion; are we going to see it applied in some way to telescopes in our lifetime?
Rob.