Orion's "apo"

Gee, an achro and you can't see false color, even on Jupiter and the moon.


Yes, I saw that one also. Sounds great, if you're totally color blind. One of
my favorite marketing excercises of late.

I have seen worse, though. Back in 1968 - 1970 there was a scope being offered
called the Haggard Aquila. It was supposedly a 6" f15 Maksutov, and I lusted
after that scope. It was affordable, unlike the 4" Unitrons, and I had little
or no money for a scope.

Years later someone told me the sad story of his ownership of this instrument.
First, he discovered that it was really a Dall Kirkham design with a plain
plate glass window for a "corrector". Next, he discovered that the primary
mirror was stopped down with a 1" ring of black tape around the periphery, so
it really only had a 4" clear aperture. When he removed the tape, he found a
humongous turned edge which made the scope totally useless. With the tape back
on, stars were little astigmatic triangles at focus. Rotating the "corrector"
showed that the plate glass material was severely astigmatic. It was never
optically polished, just cut round out of a piece of cheap window glass
material. If you go back to S&T ads of that era, in their ads you can read the
hype about this scope and how optically superb it was. People are forever
hopeful.

Roland Christen

"The smaller the focal ratio number, the greater the volume of light
admitted by the telescope."

Clear skies, Alan

Seems to me that Meade claimed higher light grasp with their F6.3 when it first
came out.

Roland Christen

Chris1011 wrote:

It doesn't "correct" false color any more than any other achro design. In
fact, it is nothing but a conventional achro design.

Except for a few very expensive glass types, the vast majority of glasses
produce essentially the same longitudinal chromatic error. The blue part of the
spectrum ends up at a point farther out from the green. The perceived error is
dependent on the focal ratio and any kind of filtering that may be used. Longer
focus lenses put more of the spectrum into reasonably sharp focus. There is
nothing in what I have said above that any optical designer would argue with.

A common misconception among amateurs is that lens design is some kind of
secret thing that requires uncommon knowledge to do. The fact is, almost anyone
can learn to do it well rather quickly. Once the fundamentals are learned, it
is no great feat to design any kind of lens, achromat, ED or zero color
apochromat. There are probably several dozen people that I know who can design
a world class zero color apo in less than 10 minutes using a fairly simple
design program. An achromat would take maybe 2 minutes.

Designing one is a piece of cake, the real chore lies ahead, when you want to
make one in the flesh. This takes a lot of knowledge that not too many people
world-wide have. There are plenty of optical shops that cannot make a working
lens to the level of accuracy required by most discriminating amateurs. They
can make lenses suitable for film imaging - no big deal, but better than
diffraction limited with proper control of chromatic aberration is usually
beyond most shops. If you can find a good shop to do excellent work (in China,
Russia, or elsewhere), count yourself extremely fortunate.

Roland Christen

Roland

Nobody was arguing the points you make, which are good ones. We've heard it all
before, though, "an achromat is an achromat is an achromat". You'd think by all
the bs (from others) that someone couldn't improve on the design of the rest of
the scope and make the achro the best that it can be... take the limitations to
the limit. Stellarvue has done this and on top of that they offer top notch
service. You always know that the scope you receive is going to be a good one, and
if for whatever reason it aint... return it. Simple stuff.

These type of threads are created by Stellarvue bashers who just can't get over
themselves.

Vic has made some mistakes in his promotional campaign for his company. Okie
dokie. They get corrected as things move along.

One thing that can't be said is that his scopes are crap. On top of that they are
getting better all the time as witnessed by the Dyer review of two Stellarvue
scopes in Sky and Telescope.

What these guys (the Stellarvue bashers) are on about is a mystery to me...
everything they discuss is ancient history. Vic has moved forward and addressed
these complaints..."because he listens to his customers".

Roland, to me it's akin to bashing you for not making your scopes better 10 years
ago because you make them even better today. I do admit that your promotional
campaign has been quite different. ;-)

You'd think the Conservatives would be on here telling people they are unpatriotic
for attacking a home grown buisness like Stellarvue. ;-)

- Don

"Chris1011" wrote in message
...

Gee, an achro and you can't see false color, even on Jupiter and the
moon.


Yes, I saw that one also. Sounds great, if you're totally color blind. One
of
my favorite marketing excercises of late.

I have seen worse, though. Back in 1968 - 1970 there was a scope being
offered
called the Haggard Aquila. It was supposedly a 6" f15 Maksutov, and I
lusted
after that scope. It was affordable, unlike the 4" Unitrons, and I had
little
or no money for a scope.

Years later someone told me the sad story of his ownership of this
instrument.
First, he discovered that it was really a Dall Kirkham design with a plain
plate glass window for a "corrector". Next, he discovered that the primary
mirror was stopped down with a 1" ring of black tape around the periphery,
so
it really only had a 4" clear aperture. When he removed the tape, he found
a
humongous turned edge which made the scope totally useless. With the tape
back
on, stars were little astigmatic triangles at focus. Rotating the
"corrector"
showed that the plate glass material was severely astigmatic. It was never
optically polished, just cut round out of a piece of cheap window glass
material. If you go back to S&T ads of that era, in their ads you can read
the
hype about this scope and how optically superb it was. People are forever
hopeful.

Roland Christen


Oh yeah, the Haggart Aquila. I remember lusting after that one as well
though I thought
it was in earlier issues, like the early 60's? Didn't they mention in their
ads that the scope
easily split Sirius? Don't know *how* difficult a split it was back then
but...

Best regards,
Bill

"Cover2Cover" wrote in message
...

These type of threads are created by Stellarvue bashers who just can't get
over
themselves.

- Don

I had an AT1010, which I loved, but it had such an annoying purple haze
around Jupiter. I tried a Vixen f11.9 80mm Achromat. It was better, but I
still really disliked the artifact of unfocused blue light. Enjoy your
StellarVue, its a beautiful piece of work. You don't need to make it more
than it is to explain your appreciation of it.

Ed

Edward wrote:

"Cover2Cover" wrote in message
...

These type of threads are created by Stellarvue bashers who just can't get
over
themselves.

- Don

I had an AT1010, which I loved, but it had such an annoying purple haze
around Jupiter. I tried a Vixen f11.9 80mm Achromat. It was better, but I
still really disliked the artifact of unfocused blue light. Enjoy your
StellarVue, its a beautiful piece of work. You don't need to make it more
than it is to explain your appreciation of it.

Ed

Ed

Your response has nothing to do with what I was saying plus your response has
no association with that piece of my reply to Roland.

Show me anywhere in anything I've posted that says that SV doesn't have CA.

Get over yourself.

I do enjoy my SV scope.

These type of threads are created by Stellarvue bashers who just can't get
over
themselves.


You may consider me a SV basher, that is your perogative. Some might consider
you brainwashed by SV, that is their perogative. Myself, I am interested in
open dialogue and getting to the root of the matter and I hope you are too.

If you are, I hope that you will refrain from using such terms as "basher",
brainwashed, or what ever. These serve no purpose except to confuse the issue.

Now we can get to the root of this entire hullaballo that has ignited once
again.

--------

Innocently, Guy Fuchs wrote the following:

"If you feel the SV claims were misleading, false, whatever, why not
contact Vic Maris? Certainly SV's copy is a whole lot more straightforward than
what Orion is putting out. (I'm only referring to the past year - didn't know
they existed before that.)"

I don't see it that way, especially when it came to the SV 102D. I do not
consider the way the SV webpage addresses/addressed the 102D as
straightforward. As I said previously, I have been leary of the 102D
filtering issue and think it ought to addressed directly.



Vic has made some mistakes in his promotional campaign for his company. Okie
dokie. They get corrected as things move along.


Very true and it seems that SV is moving ahead nicely. But history is history
and those mistakes are part of it.

jon isaacs

I was going to drop out of this, but this is too much:

"Cover2Cover" wrote in message
...
When I say bashers I am talking about all the unsubstantiated claims and
bs made
by a few, they know who they are, who have decided they have issues with
Stellarvue's scopes.

bs? unsubstantiated? I claimed they put MV filters on objectives without
disclosing it. That is an historical fact. I claimed they had a vignetted
objective. They did.

I am wondering why this 102D filtering issue has come up at this time
though, the
102D is no longer made this way. It sort of sounded like that little
tidbit that
Valery keeps reminding us about... the EDT, again, history.

History is history Jon but some people have to move forward at some point.
I just
didn't get the reason for the query.

You seem to want to have it both ways. First you say it never
happened.("unsubstantiated claims and bs") Then you claim that it is just
"history" and therefore not important.

There is an old quote that "those who look only in the past lose one eye,
but those who never look to the past lose both eyes." So what is the history
with SV?

(1) Vignetting the objective to reduce color.

(2) Putting MV filters on objectives and covering it up with a bunch of
"attenuated" mumo jumbo.

(3) The "EDT" misleading mumbo jumbo.

(4) Claiming color reduction is due to "proprietary design" and claiming
there is nothing like it in "conventional optics" when in fact SV had
absolutely nothing new (and there are no great "proprietary" secrets in lens
design).

(5) Never once coming clean and stating the truth on the website ie, never
have I seen, "These serial numbers should have the baffle replaced." or
"Some may have been confused by the term EDT. The truth is." or even, "we
reduce false color by filtering it with a filter applied to the objective."

I won't even go into some of the ridiculous posts made here by and for SV.

Yes, with a track record like that, some are going to be suspicious of the
company. It is not bashing. I just don't trust them. And while many of the
SV crowd are wonderful people who enjoy many telescopes, I find the most
ridiculous observing claims ("I think I spotted one of Mar's moons through a
fast 4" achro") and most obnoxious bashing of Synta scopes and most silly
equipment claims ("my SV achro doesn't have any false color") come from the
SV fringe.

And I have yet to see SV lift a finger to correct the nonsense that goes out
there, including on the SV group where Vic is a regular.

With a history like that, yes, people are going to be suspicious.

No malice intended.

Rarely is that said without a threat being implied.

I'm out of here for now.

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try the Lunar Observing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

Meritless abuse so coincident with Dyer's very positive S&T review.

Stephen Pitt: http://www.light-to-dark.com/



"Chuck Taylor" wrote

clip everything but the

"g"

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try the Lunar Observing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/




--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"Nick Zivanovic" wrote in message ...
"Jon Isaacs" wrote in message
...

Yes, in the 102D, as has been widely known for quite a while now.

It is only widely known because Al M. of Sirius Optics was courgeous enough to
post that information right here on S.A.A. He was the one who did the
proto-type coatings on the first 102Ds.

Even today, it is ambiously stated on the SV webpage.

You, sir, are wrong. Dave misspoke when he said "known for quite a while." He
should have said (and I know he will concur because I know Dave) "known from day
one." The 102D was advertised from the very beginning as having an "attenuating"
coating that filters the violet to reduce false color. No deception there at
all.

Al's courage has nothing to do with it. Sour grapes is more like it. Al did some
of the prototype lens coatings (I have one of the first 102Ds with his coating
on it) but he did not get the coating business from Stellarvue after that
initial batch. (The reasons for that are between Vic Maris and Al Misiuk and I
won't go into it.)

As far as it being ambiguous now, it's not even mentioned now because the
current 102D no longer uses a filtering coating at all, just a standard FMC.

It gets very tiresome even reading SAA anymore with all the uninformed BS that
is posted here about Stellarvue. Anytime SV is mentioned, the same people come
back to attack and attack and attack. It's really pathetic.

How about getting back to the point of this thread? Remember, the $430 apo?
Here's something else no one else has brought up. Orion not only sells direct,
but they have dealers too. Dealer cost on this scope is probably closer to $325
and that has to leave Orion with a comfortable profit margin as well, so think
about what it costs Orion to have these things manufactured. Roland already
chimed in the real costs of producing a *quality* telescope in the USA by an
environmentally and socially responsible company that contributes to its
community and pays its employees a living wage. Ask yourself how Orion's
supplier can sell them these scopes (I'm guessing) for around $250 a piece? Then
look at the prices of Astro-Physics, Takahashi, TMB, TeleVue, Stellarvue, and
every other company producing apos. Must be a big price fixing conspiracy
between all of them, right? Surely if Orion can sell them for $430 these other
companies must be getting rich due to their excessive profit margins. Sure. Ask
Roland, or Tom, or Vic how rich they are.

The problem is the Walmartization of the US. Everyone wants everything dirt
cheap. So we import all this cheap stuff made with cheap labor and the US
manufacturers lay people off. The same people that want these cheap goods also
want to make six figure salaries and live in 5000 square foot houses.
Unfortunately, the two are not compatible. Those same people making these cheap
goods will be happy to take your job for pennies on the dollar versus your
salary. And guess what? A lot of US companies are doing just that--sending those
jobs overseas and laying off US workers. Why pay a worker here $50,000 a year
when you can farm that job out to someone in India that's very happy to make
$8000 a year. Everyone is expendable. You won't be able to afford that 5000
square foot house anymore when the only job you can get is flipping burgers at
McDonalds. Of course, you won't be able to afford $430 "apos" either.

Nick Zivanovic


Nick,

Some notes:

1. At that time, when SV's 102D debuted, Vic himself stated: "it has
so
good color CORRECTION, that it does not need any additional color
correctors".

2. You obviously simply forgot this(1). But I am not wonder at all,
because all above your notorious reasonings should be to Vic at first.
You should know well where SV outsourced all objectives, all mounts
and most
(probably 80%) tube mechanics. FROM Asia.
If they will use LZOS-made TMB objectives in APOs, you can add to
sources list
Russia as well.


V.D.