"This
is a beautiful piece of work." |
John Gross - Sonoita Research
Observatory, Sonoita, AZ |
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The 16"
f3.75 Dream Astrograph is shown (below) with one of the 20" dovetail plates (required
accessory) attached. The dovetail plate allows fine control of
balance in the dec axis. It was designed to mate with dec plates,
like the 20" long VersaPlate of the Paramount
ME. |
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Telescopes are shipped with the 4"
Dream PDF focuser. This custom focuser was developed to allow
accurate collimation of the focuser with a very wide
footprint (7.2" diameter). The latest version Dream
is using is 6x stiffer than its predessors. Like the back plate
of this telescope, it uses 3/8-24 stainless steel push/pull bolts
for extremely precise focuser alignment, set at Dream. It also
allows the use of either the 3" coma corrector or 4"
coma correctors. |
The carbon fiber focuser platform reduces the moment
arm of the imaging train and it greatly stiffens the focuser
area compared to tall, heavy focusers used in combination with
solid laminate carbon fiber tubes. |
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The bolt pattern for the back
plate is asymmetrical. This forces the back plate and therefore
the primary mirror to go back on the telescope in the same orientation,
thus helping to better preserve the collimation of the primary
mirror. |
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