Meade 16" f/8 LX600 ACF Optical Tube Assembly

Meade 16" f/8 LX600 ACF Optical Tube Assembly

The Meade 16" f/8 LX600 ACF optical tube assembly offers an extremely large aperture in a very compact form. Designed to be relatively portable and lightweight, and includes a Losmandy-style dovetail bar mounted to the bottom of the tube which allow attachment to any Losmandy compatible mount.

The Advanced Coma-Free (ACF) optical system features Ultra-High Transmission Coatings (UHTC), an oversized low-expansion Borosilicate primary mirror, a glass corrector plate, and beautiful diffraction limited optics. The ACF optical system has brought the highest level of optical performance well within the reach of amateur astronomers at an affordable price. Using this Meade exclusive design, ACF optics achieve aplanatic performance — with a flatter field, reduced astigmatism and of course no diffractions spikes impeding the view as with a reflector design.

Designed and Manufactured in North America, and the ACF primary, secondary and corrector plate glass blanks are manufactured in the USA exclusively for Meade.

The optical path and components of the ACF telescope design

Interested in astrophotography? Meade ACF telescopes, with their long native focal lengths, are great instruments for photographing planets and the Moon in high-resolution detail with a DSLR or astro camera. And the addition of the optional Meade ACF 0.68x Focal Reducer optimizes any ACF for deep space imaging. This thread-on accessory converts an f/10 ACF into a faster f/6.8 system and transforms an f/8 ACF into a speedy f/5.5 imaging beast! The reducer shortens the long exposure times needed to record faint deep-sky objects by half and expands the field of view by nearly 50%, allowing capture of larger objects in a single frame. Your Meade ACF will become a powerful astrograph capable of capturing jaw-dropping astrophotographs with your DSLR or astronomical CCD or CMOS camera!

The LX600's focusing system boasts a couple of distinguishing features compared to Meade's LX90 and LX200 series telescopes. The first is a two-speed focus knob for ultra precise focusing of your targets. Get close to focus quickly with the course focus knob, then use the 7:1 reduction fine focus knob to dial in maximum sharpness. The second is an internal Crayford style zero shift focus mechanism built into all the f/8 ACF optical tubes. This mechanism utilizes bearings between the primary mirror and the baffle tubes, rather than the mirror sliding forwards and backwards directly on the baffle tube itself when focusing. The Crayford-style bearings eliminate focus shift, ensuring zero backlash and smooth motion throughout the focus range. Focusing at high magnifications on a planet by hand is thus extremely easy thanks to this internal Crayford focuser design and the ultra-precise fine focus feature.

Optical features include an 16" aperture, 3251mm focal length, and f/8 focal ratio. The internal dual speed focuser provides fine control of focus and the UHTC coatings provide impressive views of brighter star clusters, more fine detail in nebulae, and greater surface features on planets. The optical tube weighs 70 lb (32kg).