Meade 12 Inch LX200-ACF Advanced Coma Free Telescope with UHTC

Meade 12 Inch LX200-ACF Advanced Coma-Free Telescope with UHTC

The most widely used research telescope on earth now comes with the most advanced optical system. Meade's LX200-ACF brings Advanced Coma-Free (ACF) optics within reach of aspiring astronomers everywhere. Nearly every observatory reflector in the world uses an aplanatic (coma-free) optical system like the Ritchey-Chrétien (RC), including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Now you can own optics similar to what the professionals use. The LX200-ACF includes all the field-proven features of the LX200, including GPS, Primary Mirror Lock, Oversized Primary Mirror, SmartDrive™, Smart Mount™, AutoStar® II, and more. Plus, the LX200-ACF comes with observatory-class optics and a Series 4000 26mm Super Plössl eyepiece. The new LX200-ACF:  It's the biggest news in astronomy since, well, the LX200.

The "advanced" in Advanced Coma-Free.
A traditional Ritchey-Chrétien (RC) is a type of reflector that delivers a coma-free, flat field of view via hyperbolic primary and secondary mirrors. RC telescopes (from a variety of manufacturers) are found in most of the world's top observatories and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Because the mirrors in these telescopes have always been very expensive to make, few amateur astronomers could enjoy them. Fortunately, Meade engineers developed a radical new Advanced Coma Free design by combining a hyperbolic secondary mirror with a corrector-lens-and-spherical-primary-mirror combination that performs as one hyperbolic element. This ACF design produces a coma-free, flat field of view that rivals traditional RC telescopes at a fraction of the cost. The design even eliminates diffraction spikes and improves astigmatism, both of which are inherent in the traditional ACF design. When reviewing Meade's LX200-ACF Advanced Coma Free, Sky and Telescope magazine said, " It does indeed perform like a Ritchey-Chrétien. The difference between the off-axis images (compared to a Schmidt-Cassegrain) was dramatic to say the least."

f/10 Advanced Coma-Free Optics: Building from a classic RC design, Meade has created a new design with the same coma-free pinpoint star images and flatter field that discerning astrophotographers and most professional observatories have come to expect from classic Ritchey-Chrétien optics. Meade's Advanced Coma-Free system also reduces the astigmatism and eliminates diffractions spikes found in classical RCs. The LX200-ACF is the perfect platform for the demanding researcher and imaging enthusiast with telescopes available in apertures of 8 inches, 10 inches, 12 inches, 14 inches and 16 inches.

Primary Mirror Lock - Locks the mirror in place preventing movement during long-exposure astrophotography.

Smart Drive - Provides permanent periodic error correction (PPEC) on both axes by learning and averaging error over the course of one or more training periods, thereby minimizing guiding corrections during long-exposure photographs.   PPEC is available on both axes and functions in both polar and altazimuth modes.

Sony GPS Receiver Sensor - automatically inputs precise time, date, and geographical location to help quickly and precisely align the telescope.

AutoStar II Controller - features "Hot Keys" for quick access to a 145,000 celestial object database.  AutoStar II can be updated with the latest software upgrades, guided tours and timely objects like comets free at meade.com

The UHTC Advantage

Meade High Precision Pointing HP Feature

This feature is most helpful to astrophotographers interested in imaging objects too faint to be confirmed with the naked eye.  Or those who want to place an item dead center on a very small CCD chip.  When you turn this feature on and ask the scope to slew to an object, the scope will first slew to a star right next to the object and ask you to center that star perfectly.  The star is likely to be perfectly centered already (that's how accurate Meade telescopes are).  But once you have confirmed the star's precise location, the scope will slew to the nearby deep sky object and place it exactly in the center of your field of view.  For normal observing, this level of precision isn't necessary.  But HPP gives you the confidence to kick off a two-hour long imaging sequence without even visually confirming a faint object's existence! 

 Supplier SKU 1210-60-03 12" LX200-ACF (f/10) Advanced Coma-Free w/UHTC