Some interesting new equipment announcements at NEAIC/NEAF

Just needs SHO filters that work well at F2.8 …

John Hayes · Apr 12, 2026, 07:31 PM

Unfortunately, I had to miss the meeting this year but Luca, AKA, “The Space Koala” did a good job of making a video to review some of the new products at the meeting this year. You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGe2OuOS7OA

I’m slightly amused that Sky Watcher has a “new” patented zero shift focuser that is driven by four lead screws connected by some sort of belt. That basic concept has been around for a very long time and I even built one back during my grad-student days well over 40 years ago (mine had 3-screws). But, maybe they have solved some of the inherent problems with the fact that it is an inherently over constrained design, so we’ll have to see how well it works.

Planewave has tossed out their well established brand name to become “Observable Space” and they announced a couple of interesting tidbits. First, they have come out with a SCT! It’s a wide field F/2.8, 8” system with an introductory price of around $6,000, which comes with a focuser. That is the smallest aperture in the history of the company. They also announced that they are developing a new 1.8-m scope, which will become their largest product. Here’s a spec-sheet for the 8”: obsp_2026_dr8_spec_sheet_v2.pdf

Anyway, you can check out Luca’s video for yourself to see everything else. She did a great job of providing an overview of what was going on in the vendor booths this year.

John

Man the CO on the planewave looks huge. I know they say <60%, but I guess with only 8” corrector it makes it look like less photon gathering area.

Dunk · Apr 13, 2026, 02:53 AM

I didn’t see this in the YT video - do you have a link to more details (other than the PDF)?

It’s at 34:09.

John Hayes · Apr 13, 2026 at 03:48 AM

It’s at 34:09.

thx. She has it in with the Toupek chapter which I skipped ‘cause I already saw their announcements ;-)

Rick Krejci · Apr 13, 2026 at 02:25 AM

John Hayes · Apr 12, 2026, 07:31 PM

Unfortunately, I had to miss the meeting this year but Luca, AKA, “The Space Koala” did a good job of making a video to review some of the new products at the meeting this year. You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGe2OuOS7OA

I’m slightly amused that Sky Watcher has a “new” patented zero shift focuser that is driven by four lead screws connected by some sort of belt. That basic concept has been around for a very long time and I even built one back during my grad-student days well over 40 years ago (mine had 3-screws). But, maybe they have solved some of the inherent problems with the fact that it is an inherently over constrained design, so we’ll have to see how well it works.

Planewave has tossed out their well established brand name to become “Observable Space” and they announced a couple of interesting tidbits. First, they have come out with a SCT! It’s a wide field F/2.8, 8” system with an introductory price of around $6,000, which comes with a focuser. That is the smallest aperture in the history of the company. They also announced that they are developing a new 1.8-m scope, which will become their largest product. Here’s a spec-sheet for the 8”: obsp_2026_dr8_spec_sheet_v2.pdf

Anyway, you can check out Luca’s video for yourself to see everything else. She did a great job of providing an overview of what was going on in the vendor booths this year.

John

Man the CO on the planewave looks huge. I know they say <60%, but I guess with only 8” corrector it makes it look like less photon gathering area.

I think they will shift away from more typical astrophotography focused scopes like the CDKs, towards designs more suited to SSA work like this SCT: Short and very wide

Thanks for sharing this link - very interesting report!

Wei-Hao Wang · Apr 13, 2026 at 03:57 PM

Maybe they find SCT is easier to implement?

The corrector plate is harder to make but the optical alignment should be much easier.

In the bigger scheme of things, it shows that the company is not wed to a particular design and that they are willing to take risks with something new. In my view, their biggest challenge going forward lies in their ability to control optical quality and they’ve had a spotty record in this regard. They’ve been very slow to invest in more advanced optical testing technologies to replace their home-brew in-house test methodologies. Hopefully, as they work to rebrand the company, they can tie that to a new commitment to optical excellence while maintaining their long standing approach to customer support. In my experience, the “old” Planewave was very good about standing behind their products to support customers who uncovered any problem.

John

I am actually interested in the F/10 8” maksutov from Sky-Watcher.

LOic seems an interesting company, I wonder if they use GSO mirrors or in-house designs…

Hi All,

I was at NEAIC/NEAF (my first one!) this last weekend and ended up in some of the clips in the background for some videos haha.

Some things I’m super excited about:

Observable Space

I was really confused for the first day of NEAIC because I saw all the Planewave scopes they had and it was clarified to me later on that they had merged. I’m really glad they are coming out with stuff that is more affordable. They also have a DR280 coming out that they were collecting deposits for (500$) for. It’s estimated to cost ~$10k with the focuser (includes tilt adjustment). I downloaded the specs and they can be found here. obsp_2026_argus280_spec_sheet_v2.pdf

They also mentioned a scope that’s 2M which might be the same as the 1.8M scope John mentioned.

Takahashi

The FSQ80CF has some incredibly sharp theoretical specs. Their spot sizes are absurdly tiny and they measure the diameter instead of the radius for their marketing material. They mentioned that they are also working on a reducer just like the previous version. This would be an incredibly nice scope to have.

I also got a good look at the Epsilon in person and finally understand how much better they are than standard newts (mine).

Sky-Watcher

I’m glad to see the Esprit’s are coming back with mechanical upgrades. For the Heliostar, looking through the 100, it gives some great views. I’ve also been hearing about it from others across the whole weekend about how much they like it so I’m excited about it as well. Unfortunately, Lunt wasn’t there and there wasn’t a LS100MT at the solar star party for a direct comparison.

The Skymax 200DX looks great based on what I’ve heard so far. I’d really like to try it to complement my EdgeHD. Maybe these will finally get Celestron to upgrade the EdgeHDs.

LOic

They got some interesting designs like the folded F4-150mm scope (this is actually really heavy) and the modified Klevtsov scope 200/2000. Can’t wait to see them hit the market and how they perform (hopefully they aren’t that expensive).

Stellarvue

I talked to Vic, Bob, and some of the other team members and I look forward to getting mine lol.

ToupTek

They are coming out with a GS100 which I didn’t manage to buy at the booth because those are prototypes but they are the cutest little things ever. They also have their own mount and a D55 which I’ve heard is a septuplet (I unfortunately wasn’t paying much attention to it cause of the GS100).

QHY

I got the ArIII filter from the booth, can’t wait to try it out once it clears up again.

CS

Joel

John Hayes · Apr 15, 2026, 06:46 AM

Joel Lee · Apr 15, 2026, 05:08 AM

The FSQ80CF has some incredibly sharp theoretical specs. Their spot sizes are absurdly tiny and they measure the diameter instead of the radius for their marketing material.

Thanks for your report Joel! I have just one comment to add about something that everyone should understand. Telescope manufactures love to show geometric spot diagrams. These diagrams are very useful during the optical design process; however, it is very important to understand that the geometric spot size is NOT the actual spot size that you can expect on your sensor UNLESS there is a lot of aberration in the system! Any spot size diagram that’s worth anything will include a circle that shows the Airy diameter. The Airy diameter is the limiting size of the diffraction spot for any geometric spot that is approximately the same size as the circle OR smaller. So, if a spot diagram for an F/6 system shows a geometric spot that is (for example) 1 micron in diameter, all that is showing is that the system is diffraction limited at that field position. An F/6 system has an Airy diameter of 2.44*lamda*F/# in the focal plane. That’s roughly a diameter of 8 microns at a wavelength of 550 nm. So, any F/6 system showing a geometric spot size of 1 micron without showing the Airy diameter is complete nonsense! I see this stuff in amateur telescope literature all the time and it drives me nuts—so, don’t fall for it. All it shows is that the people making the ad don’t know anything or they are being deceptive and neither is good.

John

It feels like a spot of 1 micron or less just increases the size of the possible error in actual production i think ?