Officina Stellare RH Veloce

"Veloce", in Italian, means fast. And we choose this name because no other design allows such fast f/ ratios with a so high definition over a wide and flat focal plane. Any Veloce offers pinpoint stars all over the field of view. To put is simply, the best astrograph you can buy.

The RHVeloce is a really unique design, and uses several unique solutions, created by Riccardi and Honders (from this the "RH" in the name). The RH Veloce uses a double front lens that is weakly convergent, and the primary mirror is a "Mangin" mirror (from the name of its French inventor). A Mangin mirror is a mirror that is coated on the back surface, not on the front. The light passes through the glass, is reflected by the coating and then passes again through the glass. For this reason, a Mangin mirror is called a refractive-reflective optical element, and opens exciting possibilities to optical engineers. This complex design includes also a corrector group before the focal plane, achieving performances impossible otherwise, with extraordinary "fast" photographic performances over wide focal planes.

A curiosity about the RH Veloce: since the double frontal lens is convergent, the Mangin mirror is smaller than the "nominal" diameter of the scope, while the meniscus itself is bigger than the nominal diameter, to ensure a good illumination over the wide field of view of such scopes. For example, the 200 mm model has a 220 mm meniscus and a 190 mm primary mirror. The secondary mirror is a separated piece of glass, or it is made coating the middle of the meniscus, depending on model.

For this reason, we talk about "entry pupil" and not "primary mirror diameter", for this instruments.

The original RH Veloce series was only three models (200, 300, 350mm). The 250 model was designed for a specific application, but we were so happy about it to put it in production. It is f/5.6, not f/3.

The RH Veloce frontal lens is the only piece of optic in our production that we outsource. It is made in Germany under Officina Stellare specifications.

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