Has Anyone Used One of These?

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

Just found a contender for the best looking frac award. Has anyone owned/used one of these scopes? It's quite light, at around 5kg, I believe, and with a really sturdy focuser that would be ideal for imaging and visual. I'm not thinking of buying, as I don't have £4k, but it might be a nice scope for a future observatory.

The same brand also does a 180mm refractor, also at f/7. The weight is pretty high though, and I doubt that optics that large are necessary for anything other than extreme lunar/planetary.

http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Telescopes-AandM.asp?p=0_10_1_2_30

John

[Davey-T]

Looks like William Optics handiwork but not listed on their site.

Dave

[johninderby]

Used to have the 80mm version. Incredible build quality and great optics. A scope for those that won’t settle for anything but the best. They’ve changed their product lineup now though.

Made in Italy and known as the Ferrari of telescopes. Changed their name a while ago.

https://www.officinastellare.com/

Never should have sold mine.

[DirkSteele]

That product listing has been on the site for a long time and I think it is a legacy one and should probably be removed as I understand that A&M has now evolved into Officina Stellare (https://www.officinastellare.com/) and while they no doubt make the prettiest telescopes (you could always trust the Italians to give it some real style couldn't you), I do not think they offer refractors anymore.  That may well be because the lens is LZOS made (TMB deigned, and mostly offered by APM these days) which for the time being at least, is coming to an end.

 

You are correct though, the optics are first rate (I own the lens in the APM TMB 105) and it is a wonderful scope to travel with.  I also own the 180mm f/7 triplet and that is rather heavy at 23kg for the bare bones OTA and it is very front heavy with the balance point only a few cm behind the lens.