U niversity of Dayton F lyer O bservatory UFO Funded: Fall 2006 Through the

University of Dayton Flyer Observatory

UFOFunded: Fall 2006

Through the

University of Dayton

LTC Innovation Grant Program

UFO

Meade LX200R 12 inch telescope w/ UHTC

Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain

f = 3048 mm

D = 305.8 mm

UFO

Sony GPS Receiver Sensor automatically inputs precise time, date, and geographical location to help quickly and precisely align a LX200R Meade Telescope.

Meade AutoAlign – Telescopes with Meade Auto Align come pre-aligned. They are smart scopes that know the night sky right out of the box. Meade AutoAlign picks two fail-proof alignment stars for you and places them right in your view-finder. Just center them to fine tune your alignment and the wonders of the universe are at your fingertips.

Meade AutoStar II Hand Controller features "Hot Keys" for quick access to a 145,000 celestial object database. Meade Auto Star II can be updated with the latest software upgrades, guided tours and timely objects like comets free at meade.com

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Image brightness in a telescope is crucially dependent on the reflectivity of the telescope's mirrors and on the transmission of its lenses. Neither of these processes, mirror-reflectivity or lens-transmission, is, however, perfect; light loss occurs in each instance where light is reflected or transmitted. Uncoated glass, for example, reflects about 4% of the light impacting it; in the case of an uncoated lens 4% of the light is lost at entrance to and at exit from the lens, for a total light loss of about 8%.

Early reflecting telescopes of the 1700's and 1800's suffered greatly from mirrors of poor reflectivity — reflection losses of 50% or more were not uncommon. Later, silvered mirrors improved reflectivity, but at high cost and with poor durability. Modern optical coatings have succeeded in reducing mirror-reflection and lens-transmission losses to acceptable levels at reasonable cost.

Meade Standard Coatings: The optical surfaces of all Meade telescopes include high-grade optical coatings fully consistent in quality with the precision of the optical surfaces themselves. These standard-equipment coatings from Meade include mirror surfaces of highly purified aluminum, vacuum-deposited at high temperature and overcoated with silicon monoxide (SiO), and correcting lenses coated on both sides for high light transmission with magnesium fluoride (MgF2). Meade standard mirror and lens coatings equal or exceed the reflectivity and transmission, respectively, of virtually any optical coatings currently offered in the commercial telescope industry.

The Meade UHTC Group: Technologies recently developed at the Meade Irvine coatings facility, however, including installation of some of the largest and most advanced vacuum coating instrumentation currently available, have permitted the vacuum-deposition of a series of exotic optical coatings precisely tuned to optimize the visual, photographic, and CCD imaging performance of Meade telescopes. These specialized, and extremely advantageous, coatings are offered here as the Meade Ultra-High Transmission Coatings (UHTC) group, a coatings group available optionally on many Meade telescope models.

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Meade LX200R UHTC 12" Advanced Ritchey-Chretien RC Computerized Telescope w/ GPS, Meade Autostar II, Meade AutoAlign, Tripod 1210-60-02

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Why a Ritchey-Chrétien...

A Ritchey-Chrétien is a specialized Cassegrain reflector utilizing true hyperbolic surfaces. All reflectors typically have an aberration called coma - all except for the Ritchey-Chrétien. The hyperbolic mirrors of the Ritchey-Chrétien make this design coma free, which results in a much smaller spot size. This is the #1 reason why nearly all professional observatories have chosen the Ritchey-Chrétien design.Since Ritchey-Chrétien optics are two mirror optical systems, they have no Spectral Dispersion or Chromatic Aberration. Chromatic Aberrations are common in Catadioptric Systems and caused by their refractive element known as a "corrector plate". See diagrams of Chromatic Aberration on and off axis in a Catadioptric system.

In addition to being coma free and chromatic free, a true Ritchey-Chrétien offers:

Only two surfaces for less light loss - Catadioptric type optics have 4 surfaces (two are glass!). Some APOs have 6 surfaces. Each surface degrades the amount of light getting to the focal point.

No refractive elements - Glass scatters light, especially in IR where CCD cameras are most sensitive. A Ritchey-Chrétien has no refractive elements, such as a corrector plate.

Flatter Field - The lower the amplification factor of the secondary mirror, the flatter the field. For example, the RC has a 2.7x secondary, whereas, a Schmidt-Cassegrain has a 5x secondary. The RC has a much flatter field!

Smaller Spot Size on and off axis. Examine this spot diagram to see the difference!

For these reasons, the Ritchey-Chrétien is ideal for medium to large format CCD or film photography, where a large aberration-free field of view is required. It is also a superb visual instrument.

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryJupiter 09/18/09

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryJupiter 10/01/10

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryRing Nebula

10/01/10

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryRing Nebula Processed

10/01/10

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

NOT the University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryAndromeda Galaxy

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryAndromeda Galaxy Processed

03/31/10

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John E. ErdeiNikon D80

University of Dayton Flyer ObservatoryGreat Orion Nebula

03/31/10