Sorry everyone, I haven't posted anything lately. So on to the next types of Telescopes. The next kind in the lineup is called a Catadioptric. There are a few in this category, I will only touch basis on a couple. The first is a Schmidt-Cassegrain. The large blue telescope in my last post is a Schmidt-Cassegrain, from now on I will refer to this type as an SCT ( Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope). The Catadioptric designs are referred to as hybrids. The most common is the SCT. This Telescope works by light entering the front through a Corrector Plate into the perforated spherical Primary Mirror. It is then reflected to the Convex Secondary Mirror which acts as a Field flattener then out to the eyepiece, which is located at the rear rather then the front/side. Because of the design the light travels a long path which gives this telescope a compact package but a rather long Focal Length. This also results in a high Focal Ratio. Because of the higher focal ratio this Telescope is best used for very Deep Sky objects such as Nebula & Galaxies, such as you have seen in most all of my photographs. This gives this Telescope a very narrow field of view, however it also gives it a very high magnification with a normal range of Eyepieces. You can also get very good views of Planets as well. As an example of what I just stated though, the Reflector (The Grey Telescope in my photo of the last post), with a 20mm Eyepiece yields 32.5x Magnification. The same eyepiece put into an SCT the size I have will give you 102x Magnification. The Telescope itself is only 18" long or 457mm. Because of the design however it has a length of 2,032mm or about 6.7 feet. This is the length the light travels in the Telescope. One of the differences I noted was that the Eyepiece is located at the rear. Another is the focuser, it is also at the rear however, in this design it does not move the eyepiece. It actually moves the Primary Mirror forward or back.
   Another popular model of Cassegrain designs is the Maksutov-Cassegrain, also referred to as a MAK-Cass. There are three types of Maks, the most popular is a "Spot" Mak. I have never looked through one so I do not have any idea how they work but have read alot of good reviews on them. They are usually smaller in Aperture and very compact in size and work very similar the SCT. From everything I have read they are a great starter scope. Because I do not know much about them I cannot write a whole lot about them. If I ever have a chance to use one I will post my opinion here. In the next post I will get to what all these terms I have used here mean. Maybe even a little about accessories. If you have any questions feel free to post them. I have not posted any pictures as of late either. This is because I did some photography work at a wedding and have been doing alot of work processing so I have not been able to post here nor process any of my Astrophotos. As soon as I do they will be on here. I have also posted direct links to a couple friends Blogs. They are located in the right hand side tab on here. Check them out, they are pretty much doing the same thing as I am but, you will see different Images and some very good ones. One of them has alot about the sun and takes images of the sun himself. I hope you all are enjoying my journey. Again any comments or suggestions feel free to leave me anything.