GSO 10" F12 Classical Cassegrain with Focuser Upgrade - FREE DELIVERY

The GSO 10" F12 Classical Cassegrain Truss Tube is a modern interpretaion of the classical cassegrain design, taking advantage of GSO's experience in mass production of good quality parabolic and hyperbolic mirrors.

First conceived in 1672, the classical Cassegrain configuration uses a parabolic primary mirror and a hyperbolic secondary mirror to fold a long focal length into a relatively compact open optical tube. The combination of these two mirror types results in an image free of chromatic and speherical abberation (albeit some coma) and low field curvature. This simple design is ideal for visual observations of the Moon, planets, double stars, planetary nebula, and other objects that are well framed in the tighter fields of view that result from a long focal length.

This 10” F12 truss-tube Cassegrain from GSO is a modern take on the classical Cassegrain design. With a focal length of 3048mm, it offers excellent lunar and planetary imaging and razor-sharp visual observation. The performance of this telescope can be considered to be equal to or better than that of comparable size Schmidt-Cassegrain designs.

Because there is no corrector plate is the classical Cassegrain design, the optics are far less prone to dew. Temperature equalization is also far faster due to the open tube and fan cooling of the primary. Another benefit to the lack of corrector plate is that there is no drop off of sensitivity in the IR and UV bands so often used for planetary imaging.

The GSO classical Cassegrain is supplied with precisely figured optics, a center dot marked secondary and lightweight Serrurier truss tube. Unlike Maksutov or Schmidt-Cassegrains, these classical Cassegrains have fixed mirrors so there’s no image shift during focusing.

This version of the 10" F12 Cassegrain is offered with an upgraded 3" rack and pinion focuser, that is significantly superior to the model supplied as standard. More information on this focuser can be found HERE. This focuser can also be easily upgrade to motor focus in such a way as to maintain the manual focusing option using either the Optec Directsync SV or Thirdlynx SVX30 motors.

General Specifications