Tag: apochromat

I had wanted a high quality APO refractor for some time. Mostly for photographic use. Opportunity presented itself when Roger Ceragioli offered me a 90mm telescope he had finished the year before and was willing to sell. Working for the Steward Mirror Lab, Roger normally grinds very large optics, things like secondaries for six to eight meter telescopes. But as a hobby he makes somewhat smaller telescopes. This particular lens set had won him a merit award at RTMC in 2002. I had previously seen this telescope and after some negotiation we settled on a price.

The lens triplet is exquisite, providing absolutely perfect airy disks at high power. The photo below shows an example of the out of focus image of Antares taken with the telescope. Pulling out my copy of Suiter’s Star Testing Astronomical Telescopes shows nearly identical images for the ideal diffraction pattern. No wonder the ‘scope won a RTMC merit award.

Photographically it has proven to be almost perfectly free of color, corrected across the spectrum. There do not seem to be any detectable UV or IR halos around bright stars. This is partly a result of good design, and aided by the long focal length of f/13. No field flattener is required, with pinpoint stars across the focal plane.

Continue reading “Violet Haze, A 90mm f/13 Apochromat”