S & T Test Report Dennis di Cicco Astro-Tech's 14-inch f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien Telescope Everything about this telescope looks top-flight - except for the price. Is there a catch? Astro-Tech 14-inch f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien Telescope U.S. price: $5,795 Astronomics.com Unfortunately George Willis Ritchey didn't live to see it happen, but the optical design he codeveloped in the early 1900s proved to be profoundly important to professional and amateur astronomers during the latter half of the 20th century. Clearly gifted, albeit eccentric, Ritchey helped usher in the age of astrophysics working with George Ellery Hale at Yerkes and Mount Wilson observatories. Following his success building Mount Wilson's 60-inch reflector, Ritchey used it to take the finest deep-sky photographs of the day. But he was well aware that coma - the optical aberration that turns stars into seagullshaped flares away from the center of the field - limited what could be sharply photographed with traditional Newtonian and Cassegrain reflectors. Around 1910, Ritchey pooled his practical knowledge of telescope optics with the mathematical skills of his Mount Wilson colleague Henri Chrétien, to come up with a Cassegrain design that theoretically produced excellent star images across a wide field. But no funds were available for the construction of a ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR Astro-Tech's 14-inch f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien telescope is seen here in the author's suburbanBoston backyard observatory mounted on a Software Bisque Paramount MX and fitted with the SBIG STT-8300 CCD camera used for all the accompanying deep-sky images except where noted. As with most open-tube telescopes, a light shroud is recommended if the scope is used around any ambient light sources, including computer screens. 62 July 2016 sky & telescopehttp://www.Astronomics.com