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Hi Toyos,
I've been to TEC in Golden Colorado (Golden is like the Parramatta of Denver but a bit more countryish).
I have seen the fluorite blanks they get from Schott Glass in Germany. About 40mm thick milky disc worth a lot of money.
It is a fairly small place but he polishes his own lenses with computerised polishers and has a CNC machine for making the metal parts. There are about 5 guys working their.
TEC owners are like AP owners and very passionate about the optical perfection of their scopes. Roland Christian of AstroPhysics seems to be good friends with Yuri and acknowledges his fine work. The 140 is perhaps a little too widefield for my taste but you'd be able to image a lot of objects very very sharply with one. The 180mm I imagine is visual heaven and imaging perfection.
My think is the TEC180mm fluorite is the absolute worlds's best APO at present. The 200mm fluorite is discontinued (it was never listed on their site but if you asked to order one they may make you one). Imagine you are back 20 years ago and Roland Christian is offering an AP155EDF and there is a relatively short wait.
There are a few images of what the 200mm is capable of by Daniel Verschatse (google Antilhue Chile). The 180mm should do somehting very similar to that in imaging. High end refractor images have a distinctive flavour to them that is usually very popular. He also makes an ED and fluorite 160mm. The 200mm ED has been discontinued so currently the 180mm is the largest he makes and is the point where portability is still there but the 200mm it isn't.
Greg.
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