12-inch Closed Tube Telescope

12-inch Closed Tube Dobsonian, Rich Field Telescope

Rich Field Telescope (RFT) is a low-power, wide-angle telescope designed to show the maximum number of stars in a single field of view. With a fast focal ratio of f/4, our 12-inch offers expansive, bright views perfect for scanning the nebulae and cluster filled vistas of the Milky Way. 

Low Magnification & Wide Field: A Rich Field Telescope operates at low power to provide a huge span of the night sky, making it feel similar to powerful binoculars. 

Optimized Exit Pupil: An RFT's magnification is specifically chosen so its exit pupil (the cone of light exiting the eyepiece) matches your eye's maximum dark-adapted pupil dilation, usually 5 to 7 mm. This ensures maximum light transmission to your retina. 

What can you see: Wide framing and bright view in a Rich Field Telescope are excellent sweeping through dense, star-packed regions of the Milky Way.  

Large Deep-Sky Objects: Viewing massive, extended targets such as the Pleiades cluster and Andromeda Galaxy that would spill over the edges in higher-powered scopes. Rich Field Telescopes are not meant for high-magnification planetary viewing.  

Brighter views, more stars: A Rich Field Telescope provides a brighter view of stars, nebulae and galaxies. The reason for this brightness is its fast focal ratio. Let’s compare a 12-inch f/4 to a telescope of same size primary mirror, but slower f/7 ratio. Since the focal length is longer the objects would be larger. The light collected by both telescopes is the same, the diameter of the primary being the same, but the same amount of light is being distributed in a bigger image, consequently making is dimmer. The f/4 RFT would show far brighter celestial objects, and more stars, fainter stars in the field of view. Faint nebulae would be easier to discern. 

Milky Way Contrasts: An RFT would frame large, faint nebulae or galaxies against a backdrop of dark sky and provide better visual contrast with the background. 

Portable for dark locations: The 12-inch RFT is quite portable, and easily fits in a small car. Location plays an important part in astronomical observations. Instead of being limited to bright stars and the Moon, a dark sky opens up access to thousands of targets in catalogues like Messier and NGC. 

Closed tube: The 12-inch RFT is a closed tube telescope as opposed to a truss tube telescope. A closed tube Newtonian offers several advantages. An enclosed tube acts as a physical shield against ambient stray light from city environment. Blocking this extraneous light improves the overall contrast and clarity of the celestial object. A closed tube also provides low maintenance, protection, alignment stability, dew prevention. 

High quality optics: At Aperture Telescopes we are proud of our optical quality entirely Made in India.