History
Beginning of 2004 when I started to sale Astromist, I joined the team who invented the Clavius Telescope. Designed by Michel paramythioti on a request of Paul-Louis Vinel this telescope was based on a cassegrain design plus an internal corrector done by several lens. The design was revolutionary in terms of compacity and performances:
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Clavius 166, F6.2, 3kg, 24% central obstruction, 1°FOV |
Clavius 254, F5.5, 7kg, 24% central obstruction, 1°FOV |
Clavius 480, F4.4, 35kg, 24% central obstruction, 1°FOV |
The constraints were a limited usable field of view of 1° and not a perfectly flat field.
A patent was done. Several presentations were done including one in Hawaï during an annual Astronomy conference. The team even have been invited into the Zeiss developmement center. A lot of communication have been done.
Just imagine a new telescope design, better than RC....
But the team put too much innovations at a time regarding its capacity to deliver and youngness. Several teslescopes have been produced. But too much have been returned by the clients.
The result was a production failed. And after several years of difficulties, tries, lost investments, the company did bankrupt with a bad image and reputation on our native French market.
It has been a mess with lost of hundreds thousand euro on team members funds. At the end it was even no longer possible to refund a couple of clients.
Before the liquidation in 2010, I cought back as much as possible of faulty telescope's parts which were for the garbage and I was able to put in my small car. It was too difficult to trash all that work and energy...
Since this date, I am working to fix their troubles and find the mistakes we did on them. I restored a couple of them. Each telescope has it own history or particularities due to the numerous rework on it.
Most of my car was fit by a 480 telescope prototype. The first lights were simply awfull. After several year of try/error/adjust, I started to get sometimes results which were very good. I remembered one night at the 2017 RAP with the big 480. M8 was unreal with a 3D view using an Ethos 21 eyepiece and an OIII filter. All the people arround have been amazed by the view and its contrast.
But most of the time with this one, the results were average. The collimation or performances were not stable. Because the mecanical parts were prototypes one, adjustments were not accurates enough and some lens were shifting regularly in the tube. As of september 2019, all the troubles have been fixed, 16 years after its design.
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| Moon, Clavius 166 |
Moon Eclipse, Clavius 254 |
M27, Clavius 254 |
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| M3, Clavius 254 |
M51, Clavius 254 |
Clavius, Clavius 254 barlow x4 635nm filter |
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| M3, Clavius 480 |
M51, Clavius 480 |
Clavius, Clavius 480 barlow x4 635nm filter |
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