Description
This is a custom selected product – price range $ 22,250. Shipment cost available on request exclusively. This is a premier bespoke hand crafted telescope, availability is on application only – with thanks.
ADVANCED & PROFESSIONAL LEVEL TELESCOPE – Exceptional quality telescope for Advanced & Professional users. Exceptional performance for those that wish to achieve everything. Sublime performance on the moon, planets, stars, double stars, star clusters, globular star clusters, nebulae & galaxies.
Supply globally available to all our wonderful customers.
Schiaparelli Series Custom Hand Crafted refractor series – Model 123mm f6
Are you looking for the best refracting telescope in the world. You have just found it !!
Do you seek something more than merely special !! This is a special custom telescope series project representing the innovation and design skills of two of the most innovative telescope designer/ manufacturers in the world, whom are very long serving servants of astronomy products globally – Cris Ellis of Astronomy Alive in Melbourne, Australia, and Mark Turner of Moonraker Telescopes in London, UK. Together these two men represent in excess of 60 years experience in astronomy, and in excess of 50 years experience lovingly custom hand crafting telescopes of advanced capability for their global customers.
Have you considered nearly every single refractor manufacturer in the world, and after careful consideration asked yourself …… “Where’s their innovation ?” …. and found it lacking. These systems are custom engineered and designed to tolerances and performance criteria that other manufacturers simply are not prepared to progress from a design project into production. We have been personally involved with a number of major global telescope manufacturers in their design projects, and provided design consultancy to them, and whilst they have been prepared to produce a prototype of exceptional capability, they fail to take this into production ….. very frustrating. We take this field of design philosophy and excellence and actually take them into manufacture for you !!
The engineering, design, technical development, implementation, optics and custom hand crafting excellence of this series are unique. No superlatives required here ……… they are simply ………. unique !! Do you want something that others will look at and say …… WOW !! And keep saying it over and over ……. and over again. Not only looking at this system is a joy to the eyes, the optics match it as well. The optics are the best that is available to mankind, period ! We use LZOS’s incomparable OK4 Super APO Triplet lens series in this telescope range, nothing else is acceptable, and nothing else is good enough. These lenses are all factory tested, something that most even premium refractor manufacturers simply do not have the measurement capability or equipment to test anyway.
We have named this series the Schiaparelli Series. Giovanni Schiaparelli was the first man to observe Mars in high detail, and map it in detail as well, he did a sublime job of this task and is justifiably famous globally for his exceptional achievements. We have named this series in his honour as this telescope series has the capability to do as he did, detailed observation of Mars and the capability to map the surface !! Try that with your premier Japanese and US manufactured refractors, it simply doesn’t happen.
Details:
1. Design intent: We purchased the best refractors from the leading manufacturers globally. The famous names from Japan & USA. Twelve telescopes of different design and apertures to test them all on an advanced opthalmic comparator that is available to Cris in Melbourne, being one of the premier metrology optical test facilities available globally. The result was that we refined our design based on the best features of some of these systems, and rejected those designs that we regarded as dated and in need of serious review by their manufacturers. This enabled us to determine a design that is unlike anything that is available from anyone else globally. Something that we are very proud to present to our customers – the Schiaparelli Series !!
2. Optics: We trialled objective lenses from ten manufacturers and to six custom designs, utilising glass from the USA, Japan, Germany and Russia. The outcome was that whilst there is excellent glass from Japan, USA & Germany, this glass whilst being excellent is simply no match for the LZOS OK4 Fluorite Triplets make by Lytkarino in Moscow. Nothing compares to their quality, craftsmanship and certified test excellence. There are those that are died in the wool afficionados for Japanese refractors, particularly one brand name, but their lenses simply are not at the same standard as LZOS OK4 Fluorite triplets. The best of the USA made systems feature excellent glass also, and in our opinion under the most demanding opthalmic test conditions came in a creditable second in their capability, they use a range of excellent Crown & Flint glass types, plus a limited use of ED and Fluorite – and whilst they were excellent – and better than the best Japanese – they again do not achieve the heights of the LZOS OK4 Fluorite Triplet in capability, excellence and certified tested quality. So the result was made by Cris Ellis in favour of LZOS, and this portfolio utilises this lens portfolio, from 105mm to 350mm in aperture.
3. Tube Design:
a. Cells & metal components: Most suppliers use Sand Cast aluminium for their cells, this is simply inadequate to achieve the highest quality in the best refracting telescopes. Sand Cast aluminium is an ancient process where you pour molten aluminium into a sand pressed mould. There is variation in the density of the cast material due to this process and they are not performed under a highly cleanliess process set of conditions. This is quite adequate for visual use and also for reasonable level astroimaging, but for those that a serious about astroimaging it is simply inadequate. The highest performance astroimaging requires for the full tube assembly to be optically square – orthogonally squared. This is obligatory. The manufacturer that does take this seriously is Officina Stellare of Italy. They make the highest performance Astrographs, Ritchey Chretien, Dall Kirkham and a limited availability of refractors, please see separate section on this webpage – as we are most proud to be the Australian exclusive distributor for Officina Stellare – the best telescope maker in the world. We join Officina Stellare with using a single billet machining process to custom hand craft our major aluminium components and cells. We use 608T ultra purity aerospace grade aluminium – and custom hand machine this gorgeous material into our major components and cells. This ensures that we achieve a totally even product density of our material in our cells and major components, and thereby ensures that our orthogonal performance is maintained. You will need to refocus your Japanese and US made refractors 3-4 times more often than our units, as under testing they move around non stop on a micro level thermal basis, whereas our systems retain their integrity due to use of this exotic and expensive material & machining process. This also means that interruptions to individual subframes and lost data is avoided, giving you more usable data and less frustrated lost images, a breakthrough.
b. Knife Edge Baffles: The common design theme for a 5 inch class refractor is 4-6 Knife Edge Baffles. This is simply stated inadequate for visual let alone advanced astroimaging capability. Some manufacturers utilise 8 and one 9 baffles in their designs and this is more than merely better, as the contrast difference is staggering. We use 14 Knife Edge Baffles in this model, why, its again quite simple, its always been about contrast, and we achieve a major gain in contrast using this design philosophy. We have tested this process out against 12 premier Japanese and US made refractors, and elected to progress the 14 pieces process as there is a significant advantage is doing so. We tested out more baffles for this process and an increase going further than this is not resulting, so we finalised on the 14 piece design. It is significantly better than anything less, there is a visual performance improvement, yes you can see this with visual use.
c. Flock Lining: Matt Black paint inside a telescope tube is the standard globally, this on its own is totally unacceptable as there is no such thing as Black Paint – it is made up of every colour. Some custom hand crafted telescopes made by boffins in the US and Europe, and a few keen enthusiasts here in Australia, use Flock Paper. This is a step forward. But standard Flock Paper is an Art shop product, and whilst it is much better than matt black paint alone it is totally even on its surface and thereby still reflects an unacceptable level of the light that strikes it. We use Protostar USA flocking paper, this material is the best commercially available globally and specifically made for this application, it is unique. You will likely already know this material anyway as it is widely used by those that wants a total black out/ block out process for all sorts of applications in telescope systems. It works superbly. It is like a map of the Himalayas in miniature, up/ down and up/ down – all over its surface. What does this achieve, it enables a complete destruction of any light that happens to ingress into the tube.
d. Dew Shield/ Light Cowl: For this process we tested 12 famous name Japanese & US made refractors. We also have observed many users (over decades) at star parties putting back on the front cap or covering the front of the dewcap with a hands towel to guard against premature dewing of the lens. This has frustrated even the best and most enthusiastic refractor owners for decades. We implement a longer than standard dew cap design, this is also a design feature that Mark Turner adopts for his excellent Moonraker refractor series. The longer than standard Dew Cap/ Light Shield achieves two things:
* Firstly it enables the optics to be dew free without your having to perform added protection of the optic whilst performing an elongated visual session at a start party or during a serious astroimaging session.
* Secondly it guards against light ingress into the optical field when you have no option but to setup where there are visually observable lights in your region. The result being that where these lights would usually provide an unacceptable level of interference with the telescope’s optics the result is an improvement to a level where the light is not providing unacceptable viewing for the telescope – a design breakthrough.
e. Visual appearance: Moonraker Telescopes, UK are famous for their stunning good looks. We continue this theme into the Schiaparelli Series with an extra step forward with Powder Coating the tubes with a High Gloss Black Darth Vader Powder Coat finish, plus use High Polished aluminium inserts, handles and accessories as well. The result is a staggeringly beautiful telescope – a little like meeting Angelina Jolie face to face !! This telescope not only performs, but it has the looks to match !! This visual attractiveness is unique in exotica level refractors. If I look from my office desk forward into my showroom I see my venerable Unitron, Polarex, Vixen, Takahashi and Royal refractors from the 1960’s to brand new level models of 2014. The tubes basically all look the same excepting for the modern focusers used on the latest Takahashi’s that Cris has bought whilst in Japan in 2014. Apart from this focuser change up the innovation is basically non existent, where is the innovation guys ?? Is is disappointing, the only major manufacturer that takes refractor innovation seriously is Officina Stellare, who typically of the Italians, regard that a product must not only perform to world class – it must also look the part. We join them in applauding superlative design as a major theme of this telescope, it is that gorgeous !! Just like buying a Black Lamborghini Galliardo !!
Drop us an email or even better call us, we are delighted to share our innovation philosophy with our customers.
This product portoilio is available to all our customers globally.