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| https://app.astrobin.com/equipment/explorer/telescope/114/intes-mn56 https://app.astrobin.com/equipment/explorer/telescope/126/intes-micro-alter-mn56 Thank you to anyone who can shed some light! |
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| Optically they are the same but slightly different make and two different companies involved, INTES and Intes-Micro (the last an offshot of the former). I'm not sure they are still trading. |
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| As above, two companies near Moscow, not formally the same product and slight differences in construction. Best to keep them separate and hopefully users will correctly identify their own version. |
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It's confusing, yes.... but... here goes. Intes and Intes-Micro were separate companies but both produced maks using glass from Russian military production, so yes they made a lot of similar models sharing similar if not identical glass, but with some differences in the OTA construction. In the small sizes there were: Intes MN56 (5" f/6) Intes MN58 (5" f/8) Intes MN65 (165 mm f/5) Intes MN66 (6" f/6) Intes MN68 (6" f/8) Intes MN76 (7" f/6) and MN78 Intes MN86 (8" f/6) Intes Micro ALTER made versions of the same, except MN65 which was an odd-ball by Intes only. There were 10" and 12" models as well, and I think some rare f/4 or f/4.5 models. Most had small secondaries for visual use, except the MN65 which has a larger secondary which suggests it was intended for imaging. Secondly, both supplied optics in two grades - standard (1/6 wave P-V) or Deluxe (1-8 wave P-V or better) for the complete set. The Deluxe ones had a printed test report and a serial number that should match one on the OTA somewhere, and the Deluxe ones often had quartz or Sitall primary mirrors. The most obvious differences visible in pictures are: Intes : - The corrector was mounted in a closed cell from the inside of the OTA, and were usually supplied with a black dewcap that was a tight fit on the corrector cell. - Paint on the OTA was always beige, with a rough texture. - Some have INTES in red or blue letters along the OTA. - Some ntes OTA's were machined aluminum cylinders with a wall thickness around 2mm. Others rolled and spot welded sheet steel. Intes - Micro ALTER - all have a rather ugly circular grey ring with a lot of holes around the front of the corrector. This ring is cosmetic, after unscrewing it the corrector cell is different - the corrector slides in from the front, not the rear. - paint was communist hospital grey, full gloss and scratched easily - the OTA was rolled sheet steel spot-welded. - traffolyte label with white engraved lettering on black, stuck to the back of the mirror cell. - no dewcap supplied. Some parts were the same across both - for example the secondary mirror cells are identical, ditto the focuser (terrible, has to be replaced), the unique "toast-rack" baffle opposite the focuser, and the finder scopes, though they used totally different (and incompatible) finder shoes. Both seemed to ship the scopes in padded vinyl bags from the same manufacturer, too. And lastly... Intes was rebranding theirs as Santel, Argonaut (sold via Orion in the US) and Pegasus (sold in Japan) with different paint jobs - usually black. Intes-Micro was also the source of the deluxe-grade optics in the maks which were assembled and sold by APM (Markus Ludes and Matthias-Wirth) until about 2016. APM sold a few of the 8"-12" mak newtonians, as I recall, in white OTA's. |
