Hi [M] folk, from a relatively new subscriber (my first posting :) and
soon to be LX200 owner... :) This list and Ed's site have been a huge
help educating me, so I hope I can give something back here...

I'm not an expert on the Celestron Fastar system by any standards, but a
friend has one and as I understand it, the Fastar completely replaces
the entire secondary assembly with a tube assembly that collects the
light from the primary and passes it through additional optics before
routing it out the back of the corrector plate to where the CCD camera
is mounted.

The CCD focal point is thus well behind (in front of?) the corrector,
and not at the previous location of the secondary, as it would be in a
Schmidt camera, and presumably the optics involved flatten the field
appropriately for the CCD and handle the focus issues you raised.

As far as I know, this system is available only for Celestron scopes, I
have not seen any mention of this type of thing being available for the
Meade products.

Please correct my newbie blunders here if I've made any.

clear skies...

----
Geoff Scully
postmaster/network operations manager
WorldCHAT Internet Services

> Shay Walters writes...
>
> > Celestron advertizes with the possibility to mount your CCD
> > camera directly at the secondary mirror location.
>
> Wouldn't this require a CCD with a convex curved surface?
> The designs for
> Schmidt cameras I've seen used a vacuum system to mold the
> film to a curved
> shape to follow the surface of focus. Maybe the CCD would be
> small enough
> that "flat" would be a pretty good approximation to the
> desired curve over
> that area. I wonder how far back you'd need to move the
> primary mirror to
> obtain focus at the secondary location, and would the LX200
> move back that
> far without modification? (Sorry to just be raising more
> questions without
> providing any answers...) Also you'd have to deal with
> routing the CCD
> wiring across your optical path.
>
> -Shay
>
>
>

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