Chinese RC?

[Peter Ward]

A thread elsewhere on ISS piqued my curiosity so I did a little digging to see what China may have in the way of RC optics.

I was not disappointed!

http://www.hioptic.com/telescopes/im...KP4800x400.htm

I'm still trying to figure what a "Rayleigh Criterion telescope with German heavy duty pedestal stand" is...but it must be a whopper. 16" F12 !!?

[h0ughy (David)]

http://www.astronomics.com/main/defi...v8hwnls/Page/1

[h0ughy (David)]

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scdiroff...Criterion.html and this explaination - but I am not sure where they are going by calling their(the chinese RC) scope this? so would this be a planetary scope with a focal ratio of f12?

[Karlsson]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

I'm still trying to figure what a "Rayleigh Criterion telescope with German heavy duty pedestal stand" is...but it must be a whopper. 16" F12 !!?

And yet it cannot see stars any dimmer than 14th mag., about as good as an 8" scope...

To me it looks like their not-so-well-informed publicity machine started spinning well before the design department did

However - there is little doubt in my mind that Chinese Ritchey-Chrétiens will come, sooner or later