The “orange tube” telescopes became an instant classic and many of them are still in use today… But the design could be a little bit better, couldn’t it? Yeah. The popularity of the C8 Celestron telescope in the consumer marketplace led to the C5 Celestron telescope and then to larger versions, including an 11″ and 14″ telescope. This optical breakthrough was incorporated in the first Celestron C8. In 1970 Celestron telescope designers and engineers announced a revolutionary method of producing Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes at a reasonable cost and in volume. One the average consumer couldn’t afford. This produced great flat-field images and long focal lengths in an extremely compact design – but it also introduced a very expensive telescope. The Schmidt design allowed for a corrector plate to be added to the optical path to help eliminate spherical aberrations – the increased refraction or reflection of the light rays when they strike near the mirror’s edge. Its predecessor the Cassegrain, used a primary concave mirror and a secondary hyperbolic convex mirror to focus the light back through the hole in the primary to the eyepiece or camera. Some four decades ago, the SCT was cutting edge technology. While I’ve seen a lot of things come and go over the years (including other Ritchey-Chretien and astrograph knock-offs), the Celestron EdgeHD is a design that I think really deserves a closer look…įirst let’s start the story off where it deserves to be started… the basic Schmidt Cassegrain design. As always, I keep my eyes and ears open when it comes to the latest in astronomy equipment. In this new generation of everything high def – from computer screen to televisions – is it possible to create a high definition telescope? The answer is yes… And the designer is Celestron.
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