[WITHDRAWN] GSO 12" RC carbon truss OTA

[Doomsayer]

GSO 12” f8 Ritchey-Chretien carbon fibre truss telescope OTA. Mirrors and OTA are in great condition and holds collimation well. A really great telescope for the money. Includes original GSO Crayford focuser, Astrozap light shroud, molded plastic mirror covers, 12v fan power supply and several extension tubes. Also includes a TS-Optics primary baffle tube mask to prevent any stray light baffle related issues (see photo) – stray light hasn’t been a problem for me when imaging.

Reason for selling is an unexpected upgrade to an RCOS12.5” RC, otherwise I would be hanging on to the GSO. I purchased the GSO from here on IIS a few years ago and it has not had much use from me since, mainly due to ongoing equatorial mount or camera problems, and more recently the bad east coast weather. So I do not have many example images to show and I was mainly using small sensor cameras. I did manage to get a few quick full frame shots recently on a clear night with 90% humidity and bad seeing – NGC5139 shown here with a fullframe mono CCD.
This scope has always been stored in an observatory and has been covered up when not in use. Comes with a very large double layer cardboard box (orginal GSO packing) and foam (approx 1070 x 630 x 570mm, gross weight marked on box 36kg). I haven’t yet decommissioned the GSO as I was hoping to get a few more fullframe images to show it off. I don’t think the weather is going to let me do it – so I’m putting it up for sale with the OTA photos showing it still installed on the mount. Other items, finders, cabling, piggybacked telescope, mount and motorized focuser visible in the photos are not included.

In my experience the main downside of this telescope is the original Crayford focuser. Once I replaced the Crayford with a software controlled rotator-focuser, the OTA really worked well for carrying big astro cameras without any risk of flexure. Custom adapters from Precise Parts or equivalent make it easy to adapt a better focusing system to the OTA for imaging and there is plenty of backfocus to play with. The OTA weighs about 25kg according to GSO.

For a large item like this pickup is advised. If you want to ship it you will have to organize your own courier. I would be prepared to drop the package at a local courier service depot if required. Thanks for looking.

$2500