Optical Tubes

For the novice astronomer, who may be wondering what the
optical tube is, it is your telescope’s body. The OTA (Optical Tube Assembly)
is very important if you decide to build your own telescope or you want to
bring a telescope back to life. You will need to find the right OTA for your project. However,
before you do that you need to know something about the optical Tubes.

If you are rebuilding with parts or building your own OTA,
you will need to know what you will need to replace, upgrade or just buy for
your project. There are many different styles that you will want to research
before you choose what you need for your OTA. You may have specific ideas about
the type of product you want. Before designing your own personal OTA or one
that has been pre-made you should find out what each part does and what
enhancements you can use to make your product better. Then you will want to
also check out whether you need reverse cables, radial guiders, auto guiders, camera
rotators and any other part. You will want to know something about other parts
as well such as eye pieces, corrector plates and mounting plates. No matter
what you want from your optical tube you should take a minute to learn each
part and do comparative price checks if you are building your own.

When building your Optical Tubes, depending on what you
want, the project can cost a little or a lot. You may find pieces that can be
as low as $25 or whole OTA’s with all of your needs plus many accessories that
can be as high as $2000. You will find that the best makers of this product are
EON, Apex and Meade. And specific models that are very good are EON 72 mm ED
Apochromatic Refractors, Apex 102 mm Maksutov Cassegrain and the Meade LX 200.
After choosing the perfect parts you will have the telescope that fits your
individual needs.