Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc.

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Fastar-Celestron Telescopes: Celestron's Fastar-compatible telescopes allow the astrophotographer to remove the secondary mirror and replace it with a lens assembly. The CCD camera is then attached to this lens assembly on the front of the telescope. The advantage of this is to greatly reduce the focal length of the scope, as well as reducing the f-ratio. With the 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, focal length is reduced to 396 mm, and f-ratio reduced to f1.95. This allows imaging of very large objects, using much shorter exposure times. Most exposures can be made without any manual guiding. For more info see Celestron's Fastar Product Info Page and the PixCel/Fastar Imaging System.

Updated 7/23/99