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In the shops

Altair Astros 150mm Rumak Maks


Ian Morison tries out Altair Astros new 150mm Rumak Maksutov, and nds a telescope that can handle deep sky work and planetary observing with equal air.
o give an accurate review of a telescope one needs at least two nights: one with a dark and transparent sky to see how it performs on deep sky objects, and another with a stable atmosphere with good seeing for observations of double stars, the Moon and planets. With a clear night in prospect, I took Altair Astros new 150mm Maksutov along with a computerised IOptron Mini Tower mount to a dark site in mid Wales. They make an excellent match and a perfect pick up and go combination to take away from light polluted skies! As the clouds cleared before sunset, I allowed the telescope to come into thermal equilibrium with the cooling air. This is particularly important for Maksutovs, as the thick meniscus corrector plate does not transfer heat quickly. The telescope comes with a nicely blackened dew shield that locks to the tube assembly with a bayonet mount. Neat. The matching and optically excellent 8 50 finderscope was mounted on the tube and the two aligned on a distant treetop. To be honest, this was barely used as the Mini Tower was able to bring all of the observed objects, except one,
The Altair Astro 150mm, ready to observe. Image: Ian Morison.

well within the field-of-view of my wide field eyepiece. The exception was the Perseus Double Cluster as I could not remember their catalogue numbers to enter into the computer and did not want to loose my dark adaptation in order to find out! As darkness fell, the first target was Vega, high overhead. Its defocused image immediately showed that the collimation was spot on, with the shadow of the secondary mirror precisely centred within the circular diffraction pattern. The fact that there was no bleeding of the ring pattern showed that the air inside the tube had reached equilibrium with the outside. The Altair Astro 150mm is quite unusual in my experience, in being a Maksutov or Schmidt Cassegrain that does allow one to adjust the collimation. There are three apertures on the base plate that can be opened to allow access to the adjusting and locking screws if required. Though, at this time, the seeing was not that good, the ring pattern was of high contrast indicating that the mirror surface was smooth. The telescope is focused by using a dual speed (1:10) ultra fine focuser that moves the primary mirror within the tube assembly. In many such telescopes this causes what is called focus shift the star or planet moving across the fieldof-view as focus is attained. The fact that I saw none pays testimony to the unseen mechanical construction of the telescope.

Pin-point star images


A quick look was made at epsilon Lyrae, the Double-Double, but

though each of the two stars were seen to be extended the seeing was not good enough to split them. The seeing improved greatly as the night went on and, by 1:30am, under a totally dark sky, the Milky Way could easily be seen arching overhead. An excellent test of the overall image quality of a telescope is to observe the Perseus Double Cluster with a wide field eyepiece. I used a TMB Paragon 40mm eyepiece whose 45mm field stop, coupled with the 1,800mm focal length, gave a field-of-view 1.4 degrees across that nicely encompassed the two clusters. This eyepiece showed pin-point star images right to the edge of the field the result, I believe, of the sophistication of the design. In the vast majority of amateur Maksutovs (called Gregory Maksutovs), the secondary mirror is simply an aluminised (or multi-coated) circular spot on the interior of the corrector plate. This means that its radius of curvature must equal that of the corrector plate. The Rumak Maksutov under test is named after Harry Rutton who incorporated a separate secondary mirror into the Maksutov design. This obviously increases the cost but gives the optical designer a further degree of freedom so that the image quality can be enhanced, in particular to improve the flatness of the field (important for CCD imaging) and the size of the image field giving high quality star images. This one view of the Double Cluster was enough to show that both these goals had been achieved in the Altair Astro 150mm. The Paragon eyepiece was also used to observe M27, the Dumbbell Nebula, which showed

WHAT REALLY IMPRESSED WAS HOW MUCH ONE CAN SEE WITH THE ALTAIR ASTRO 150MM FROM A DARK SITE ITS FULLY MULTI-COATED CORRECTOR PLATE AND MIRRORS NO DOUBT HELPED
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In the shops

aksutov
Members of Maccleseld AS put the Altair Astro 150mm through its lunar paces. Image: Ian Morison.

up as a diffuse ball of cotton wool against a pitch black background a far better image than I have ever seen from my light polluted home. The Ring Nebula, M57, observed with a 20mm TeleVue Plssl, was the next target, showing up as a well defined smoke ring. With a 150mm telescope one could not expect to see the central star. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, was an obvious target and, again using the Paragon, showed up beautifully. What was immediately apparent in the eyepiece was its accompanying galaxy M110 I do not see that nearly so easily from home. A slew from the east around to the north brought the telescope onto the pair of galaxies, M81 and M82, in Ursa Major. M81 had a distinctly brighter centre within its spiral arms visible but not showing structure. M82 was obviously cigar-shaped, the pair nicely seen together in the Paragons field-of-view. What really impressed me was how much one can see with a relatively small telescope given a really dark sky site its fully multi-coated corrector plate and mirrors no doubt helped.

Ray diagrams showing the subtle difference between a Gregorian Maksutov, and Harry Ruttons Rumak Maksutov with the secondary mirror. AN graphic by Greg SmyeRumsby.

Planetary work
Jupiter had risen into the eastern sky, but was still low down and a quick look showed that its upper and

lower edges were tinged with colour due to refraction. While Jupiter was climbing higher in the sky, I took some time out to do some wide field astro-imaging but, at around 3:15am, turned the telescope back onto Jupiter. The colour fringing had now gone and even at a power of 45 using the Paragon one could see that the South Equatorial Belt was missing. Magnifications of 90, with the 20mm TeleVue Plssl, and 138 using a 13mm TeleVue Nagler probably gave the best overall images, but I then tried 7.5mm Takahashi and 7mm Nagler eyepieces giving magnifications of around 240. Though having less contrast than the lower powers,

The tube assembly showing virtually no reection from the corrector plate. Image: Ian Morison.

At a glance: Altair Astro Rumak Maksutov


Aperture: 150mm Focal length: 1,800mm Focal ratio: f/12 Weight: 7 kilograms Finderscope: 8 x 50 Features: fully multi-coated on all optical surfaces, collimatable primary mirror, twist and lock dew shield. Price: 749 Available from: Altair Astro (01263 731505, www.altairastro.com) Astronomia (01306 640714, www.astronomia.co.uk) Green Witch (01954 211288, www.green-witch.com) Ian King Imaging (01892 834004, www.iankingimaging.com) Modern Astronomy (020 8763 9953, www.modernastronomy.com)

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Taking cosT, pracTicaliTy and performance inTo accounT, a rumak maksuTov could well be The opTimum choice
the image had not broken up or become mushy confirmation of very good seeing coupled with a set of excellent optics. Observing the Moon provides a superb test of the overall contrast of the telescope. The aluminised mirrors in reflecting telescopes were once a significant cause of reduced contrast, but with multi-coated mirror surfaces they can now rival refractors in this respect. A chance to observe the Moon came when members of Macclesfield AS met in the Cheshire countryside to discuss and use a variety of telescopes. Observing conditions were not good even though the Moon was nearly due south it was still only 11 degrees above the horizon and it sank below distant clouds before it became really dark. Even so, the members were really impressed with the view obtained with the telescope and I photographed it to try to provide an objective view of its ability. The image shows the Moon, nicely filling the APSC sized sensor, in an apparently pitch black sky, but inset is a thumbnail of the original image. The sky light was removed by taking an image of the adjacent sky and subtracting this from the Moon image before some gentle processing in Photoshop. Normally I would never attempt to photograph the Moon under such conditions and was surprised by the contrast seen visually and shown in the image. The telescope cannot be faulted on this score! I hope it has become apparent that I was very impressed with this telescope but how does it compare with other telescopes of this aperture? For the ultimate in optical quality a 150mm apochromat refractor or MaksutovNewtonian would be best but considerably more expensive. They are also somewhat unwieldy and need large and expensive mounts. The Rumak Maksutov reviewed here is not far behind in theoretical image quality and is both less expensive and far more compact than either. Although larger and somewhat more expensive than a 150mm SchmidtCassegrain, taking
The Nikon D80 mounted on the back of the Altair Astro 150mm, ready to begin imaging. Image: Ian Morison.

The optical tube assembly showing the dual speed focuser, apertures for collimating the primary mirror, and the finderscope. Image: Ian Morison. The seven-day old Moon with the original image inset. The sky-light was removed by subtracting an adjacent sky frame. Image: Ian Morison.

cost, practicality and performance into account a Rumak Maksutov could well be the optimum choice. The Altair Astro 150mm is a superb example of its type, providing excellent value for money, and is a telescope that I highly recommend. One final point: because of their relatively long focal length, Maksutovs are often regarded as being only suitable for lunar and planetary observing. I hope that I have shown that they can be pretty good for deep sky observing too. What more can one want? Ian Morison is a radio astronomer at Jodrell Bank, the Gresham College Professor of Astronomy, and is the Society for Popular Astronomys equipment expert.

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