The Sky-Watcher 180mm Maksutov-Cassegrain folded optical system comes close in optical performance to the best-known ultra-premium 7" Maksutov, but at less than 15% the price.
Among Maksutov-Cassegrain telescopes, none is more revered by optical purists than the ultra-premium 7" Questars. Their only drawback is a price that starts at over $9000.
Granted, this 180mm (7") Sky-Watcher Maksutov-Cassegrain is not quite the performance equal of a 7" Questar, but it's in the optical ballpark in side-by-side comparisons at less than 15% of the typical 7" Questar price.
This 180mm (7") aperture Sky-Watcher Maksutov-Cassegrain uses quality Schott optical glass, from the premier German optical glass manufacturer, for exceptional high contrast/high resolution images. Within the solar system you will see lunar features under one mile across; large clouds and dust storms on Mars; as many as six or seven of Saturn's moons; Jupiter's four Galilean moons start to show as tiny discs at high powers; many dimmer asteroids become visible as faint star-like points; and seeing conditions start to limit how much solar system detail you can see on an average night
Outside the solar system, the high resolution 180mm Sky-Watcher Maksutov will split binary stars separated by less than one arc second during very good seeing; some globular clusters will be resolved almost to the core, and there will be much internal detail in nebulas and some visible structure in many galaxies from a dark sky site.
Features of this 180mm Sky-Watcher Maksutov-Cassegrain . . .
Maksutov-Cassegrain optics: 7" (180mm) aperture, 2700mm focal length, f/15 optical system using premium Schott optical glass. The system's Maksutov corrector lens is fully multi-coated on both sides with multiple layers of anti-reflection materials for high light transmission and good contrast.
Internal focuser: Focuses by moving the primary mirror fore and aft in the optical tube by means of a large focusing knob on the rear cell.
Star diagonal: 2" 90° mirror type.
2" eyepiece: The 96x eyepiece is a fully multi-coated three-element Sky-Watcher 28mm LET with a long 20mm eye relief and a twist-up eyecup. The eyepiece field of view is 0.58° across, a little larger than the diameter of the full Moon, for expansive views of the Moon, compact nebulas, and globular star clusters.
Finder: 8 x 50mm straight-through dark crosshair achromatic refractor.
Dovetail: Vixen-style dovetail bar for installing the scope on any altazimuth or equatorial mount using a Vixen-style saddle.
Warranty: two years.
