| And speaking of telescopes...Previously, we've spoken about reflectors and refractors. This week we'll briefly discuss catadioptric or compound telescopes. These telescopes are essentially a mix between reflectors and refractors having both a lens and mirrors. The most popular implementations of this style include Schmidt and Maksutov Cassegrains. These are some of the most popular telescopes available to amateur astronomers, providing both high quality images and an extremely portable design. Utah Skies is fortunate enough to have an Orion Mak-Cass(called the Argonaut). The 6" version of this design fits easily in the overhead bins on planes or the backseat of your car, making it an ideal "travel" scope. This scope also produces nice sharp images of the planets or the moon as well as having enough size to use it for deep sky observing. Objects such as the Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy and the Hercules Cluster look spectacular in it. This scope is an all-around performer. | |