Let me say firstly that this is the best piece of astronomical equipment that I've ever had the pleasure to own and operate. It was a total fluke that I ever got it at all. I had requested to Marj to put me on the list for it if it should ever materialize back in 1998. On the S.A.A., Roland was casually talking about his Mak-Cass prototype with Valery Deryushin, of Aries, and his desire to produce an instrument that would go deeper than his past and infamous 180 EDT apo. At Astrofest, he previewed a prototype achnowledging his commitment to start the production of a 10" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.
I've owned one other Mak in the past, an 8.5" Mak-Newtonian, and ever since have fallen for the virtually flat coma-free field of view that these scopes offer. Knowing that with a larger scope of 10" of high quality aperture, I should be able to continue observing fine pplanetary detail plus enter the deep sky relm more enjoyably over an 8.5" Mak.
Roland has done an exemplary job in designing this Mak with a much faster temperature cool down ability. By implementing the removable cover to the tube that's over the primary mirror, the rear portion of the primary mirror is exposed directly to the outside air whilt the inside of the tube stays closed and free of dust. The primary mirror is tapered and made of fused silica. Upon setting thisscope up in 15 minutes time, I can often start observing immediately at high power 20 minutes after the Mak leaves its case. I've been able to observe at 400x immediately after setup to see much planetary detail on the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and tight double stars.
Because the corrector lens was coated with a special coating application, you cannot even see the coating on the glass corrector as you look straight at it. This allows the field of view to be even more darker than I had expected. It is very close to a superior apo in performance in darness of field of view. My observations of the moon, planets, bright stars, and DSO's attest to seeing more detail because of the darker field of view and injcrease of contrast. A recent look at M51 resembled a similar view through another person's 14" Dob with respect to detail seen in the spiral arms of this galaxy. The whole scope is more light ewefficient than any other 10" catadioptic or reflective scope I've looked through.
The long focal length of f/14.6 provides a nice easy focusing characteristic making it easy to focus on objects. There's plenty of room for error without losing the focus. The focusing knob is large and easy to turn and this also enhances the fine focusing characteristic.
Last Saturday night at Fremont Peak provided me with fairly good views of Mars, my first using this scope. Focusing on the planet was easy at 450x. It was only a matter of fighting the occassional blur that came and went all night long. I know I'm going to love using this scope. Everytime I plan my next trip out to observe, it's a struggle in choosing eithe the 20" Zambuto Starmaster or the A-P 100" Mak-Cass. The Mak is a much tighter operating scope over the Starmaster Dob. The 20" Dob's short f/4.25 f.l. requires very careful collimating and focusing while the Mak is a breeze with these things. The Mak needs no coma corrector (Paracorr) or collimation. Just set it up and observe. I have yet to come close in realizing what this scope can do. Only my good timing and the weather will allow me to come close.