Maksutov Cassegrains

lazygit

Sky Watcher Maksutov-Cassegrains - SKYMAX-102 (EQ2) 102mm (4”) f/1300 MAKSUTOV-CASSEGRAIN

Has anyone use one of these? how to they preform as an allround telescope?
im trying to offset preformance and portability!

albertw

I've been looking at it to have as a good portable telescope. Maks are generally good all round scopes, and very compact and light, this one can be mounted on a photographic tripod so no need to drag an eq mount on holidays. The relativly small aperture means it wont be great at deep sky, and they are more prone to chromatic abberation apparently, but I havent looked through one at night to compare them to anything else.

Orion optics in the US have a similar scope also http://www.telescope.com and look for starmax 102.

I'll probably wait until after the connaught star party to get one. hopefully there will be some small Maks there to observe with and try out. I know andromeda optics have them, but they arnt on their website .

Cheers,
~Al
--
www.irishastronomy.org

jhonan

Andromeda do have the Intes Mak-Cass scopes listed at;

http://www.andromedaoptics.com/intesmak.html

These have had some very good reviews on cloudynights.com - Although they start at 5" so I'm not sure how portable they would be! Also, the Skywatcher 127 Mak is at : http://www.andromedaoptics.com/mak.html

I've spoken to Jimmy in the past, and he loves the Intes Mak-Newt scopes. I thought one of the advantages of the Mak design was that it didn't suffer from c.a. ?

John.

albertw

Originally posted by jhonan
Andromeda do have the Intes Mak-Cass scopes listed at;

I've heard great things about them but the lowest they do as you say is 5" apparently so it just isnt what I'm looking for.

These have had some very good reviews on cloudynights.com - Although they start at 5" so I'm not sure how portable they would be!

I spoke to Jimmy about this at the IAS exhibition and he reckons that 5" wont work with a photographic tripod and so you will need an eq mount with weights etc. Which isnt portable enough for me, Im thinking a scope to bring travelling to the venus transit type portable. The 102mm scopes seem to weigh just over 2 kilos which is within the range of a sturdy tripod, and of course can alway be mounted on an equatorial if needed.

I thought one of the advantages of the Mak design was that it didn't suffer from c.a. ?

Let me go check on that. The person who told me that was comparing scopes at the time, so perhaps he meant more likley to suffer from c.a. relative to say a schmidt newtonian.

Cheers,
~Al

lazygit

Jimmy poped over the other day from Andromeda with the scope... and i have to say its sweet.. so i bought it

its tiny and very portable! it would fit in a pack pack no problem..
The tri pod it excellent and is very light.. except when the EQ mount and counter weights are on!

The optics are excellent.. crystal clear no colour problems or distortion (sp?)
it came with a 10mm and 25mm lense i also picked up an erecting prizm so i could us it during the day as a Spotting scope.

if anyone wants to call over some day to have a look before buying or just to have a gander drop me a PM