Re: New telescope technology


Martin Brown wrote:
TopBanana wrote:

When do you think we'll see active optics filter down to amateurs? It
seems to be the most exciting thing happening in astronomy at the
moment.

</comment>
The words "active optics" are actually used for devices that do modify
the optics to correct for low order, high amplitude, low frequency
optical errors (defocus, piston, astigmatism and spherical to name the
most frequent ones). You might have meant "adaptive optics" though, by
which term they mean the devices that do correct low amplitude, high
frequency optical errors due to atmospherics at some point of the
optical path
</end comment>


Starlight Xpress already do one that is perfectly adequate for amateur
aperture scopes based on a tip-tilt corrector. You can also do offline
stack and add tricks for planetary images with a humble webcam.

That's woefully inadequate if the proper menaing of the term "adaptive
optics" is accepted. It is not even fast enough for correcting tip/tilt
errors induced by the atmosphere let alone all other terms...

BTW, SBIG started making the same device 10 years ago. Once upon a time
there was a true tip/tilt correction device available to the amateurs
(the AO-2) but alas this is no more.

Andrea T.

Andrea T.

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