12.5" RCOS Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

RCOS has established itself as a major supplier of premium quality reflecting telescopes, all the telescopes currently supplied are of the Ritchey Chretien Design.
RCOS  telescopes are of lightweight design with a carbon fibre OTA and precision-machined magnesium alloy mirror cell and backplate. A 2.7" AP focuser is fitted as standard but this has been replaced on my telescope with a precision machined instrument adapter to give a very rigid and stable CCD camera connection - focusing is now achieved via a very precise (mirror position controlled to 1/10,000 inch resolution) motorised secondary focus system designed by RCOS.

SBIG ST-10XME CCD Camera

The camera is based on a Kodak KAF3200ME CCD device which has an array of 2184 X 1472 6.8 micron pixels, these new "ME-Chip" cameras have a significantly better blue response and higher overall QE than earlier Kodak based cameras. The camera is fitted with a second (ST-237) CCD sensor which acts as a high-performance integrated guider.

The CFW-8 is a motorised filter wheel which is fitted with IR-blocked RGB interference filters .

The SBIG AO-7 is a tip-tilt design adaptive optics system which utilises the guiding chip to overcome some seeing-related distortions

This is a heavy duty, high precision equatorial mount designed as a photographic and CCD imaging platform with a payload capacity of 140lb (64kg). The mount may be driven by a full-featured handcontroller, from a PC based planetarium programme (eg The Sky from Software Bisque), or by voice command using the supplied Digital SkyVoice software.

The equatorial head weighs in at 94 lbs but is designed to split  into 2 pieces for transport. This monster is permanently mounted on a 10" diameter steel pier attached to the concrte plinth (2 feet square sunk 6 feet into the ground) in my observatory. Periodic error without PEC is less than 3 arc-seconds over multiple worm revolutions.
The drive system uses a high-quality zero-cogging DC servo motor controlled by a microprocessor to an accuracy of 0.05 arc seconds per step. Tracking is very smooth, noticeably smoother than any stepper motor drive or inexpensive servo drive. The system can be accurately controlled over a speed range of 4800:1 which allows 0.25x sidereal for guiding to 1200x sidereal for 5 degree per second slewing.

This 6" (152mm) F/7.9 premium APO refractor is a superb instrument for both visual observing and photography/CCD imaging. The 4" R&P focuser has minimal backlash and no focus shift is discernible at extreme high power.

The telescope is shown here mounted on an AstroPhysics AP900 GOTO (smaller sibling of the AP1200 GOTO). The TMB scope and AP mount serves as my high performance portable setup and for medium resolution widefield imaging

View Through Observatory Opening