Changes at Coronado - PST? SM40 telescope

[Merlin66]

I notice the "new" PST is said to be fitted with a "Rich View" tuner and the old rubber tuning ring now looks completely different - can any members comment/ confirm.
The 40mm solar scope also seems to have been dropped from the range???

[marktownley]

Where have you seen this Ken? I looked on their site and the PST looks the same.

[Merlin66]

Mark,
The Meade product manual now talks about PST with "Richview" tuning and a 30mm etalon (not the original 20mm).
Most PST images on the vendors pages now show this image:

new PST.JPG (32.26 KiB) Viewed 1016 times

[marktownley]

My truthful thoughts: I think Coronado are stretching their boundaries with their descriptions at the moment...

Their Coronado 70 III - which is touted as a 70mm but is actually just 60mm etalons...

My guess with the PST - 30mm etalon; may be 30mm edge to edge, that sounds about right, but only 20mm of the aperture is used. Richview tuning; on the DS module yes, the PST looks exactly the same to me!

They're misleading customers I think...

[Valery]

My truthful thoughts: I think Coronado are stretching their boundaries with their descriptions at the moment...

Their Coronado 70 III - which is touted as a 70mm but is actually just 60mm etalons...

My guess with the PST - 30mm etalon; may be 30mm edge to edge, that sounds about right, but only 20mm of the aperture is used. Richview tuning; on the DS module yes, the PST looks exactly the same to me!

They're misleading customers I think...

I think exactly the same way.


Valery.

[Merlin66]

Could be....
Don't you see the difference in the tuning area? No rubber knurled ring....

[Bob Yoesle]

Not sure why the change in the tuning ring appearance, but I would agree the etalon is likely the same as it has been - 30 mm with a 20 mm clear aperture. If it was larger (30 mm clear aperture) an entirely new OTA would have been implemented with probably a larger objective, and the price would increase significantly. If the objective remains 40 mm, there would likely be no advantage to increasing the clear aperture to 30 mm, as it would require larger (more costly) collimation/refocusing optics. The etalon tuning itself seems to have been mechanical compression tuning ("rich view") for some time... So most likely this is a marketing strategy.

Solar Max II 40 mm scope is gone, but the 40 mm front etalon is still listed.