Parabolical Primary Mirror
The most special feature of this telescope - far from common in telescopes of this size - is the parabolical primary mirror. Many instruments of this size have a simple spherical primary mirror which is much easier to make, but offers an inferior image quality compared with a parabolical mirror. Due to the parabolical mirror high magnifications are possible with a sharp, clear image quality. At the same time image sharpness is also much better on wide-angle rich-field observations.

In a Newtonian telescope with such a short focal length the parabolical mirror is strictly necessary in order to reach a diffraction limited image quality!

Customer Feedback:
"Until now I have used a similar telescope of similar aperture and focal length. I thought that a small, short focal length Newtonian simply wasn't able to show more than the one I had. Now I tried your telescope and it really opened up my eyes! On Saturn I was previously only able to see traces of its rings, now the ring floats clearly in space. Nebulae and star clusters are brighter, too; I think this is due to the larger secondary mirror [Many telescopes of this type have too small secondary mirrors, permitting only a part of the light collected by the primary. Editor's note]. I am looking forward to further observations - for me this telescope is a perfect portable all-purpose telescope.

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The Orion Clear Aperture Newtonian shown here on the Sky Pro mount.
The EQ5 is similar in size and capacity.

The Solution: The Orion CLAN ( Clear Aperture Newtonian ) combines the advantages of both telescope designs.

- no false colour whatsoever and no secondary mirror obstruction
- comfortable viewing position at the upper end of the telescope tube (and as a result a better stability with many mounts due to the fact that the tripod need not be extended as much)
- quick cool-down time because of the open tube
- only two optical surfaces (primary and secondary mirror) for further contrast and a very good image brightness

The Orion CLAN is not a rich-field telescope - its focal length of 1240mm makes it better suited for viewing the moon and the planets. Of course you can also use the telescope for viewing deep sky objects. With the TS Super Plossl 40mm you get a field of view of about three times the diameter of the full moon.

The moon and the planets are shown in their true colour without any coloured fringe around them. A similar image quality is otherwise only reached by other, much more complex (and expensive!) clear aperture reflecting telescopes or a perfect (and even more expensive) true apochromatic refractor of a similar aperture.

The telescope is collimated like a normal Newtonian telescope. Both the primary and secondary mirrors sit in adjustable cells.

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