Over the past few years I have tried and used a variety of telescopes. From an 8" /10 Meade LX200, to a 7" f/4 Mustakuv-Newtonian to my current William Optics Zenithstar 105 (Field Use) and my latest
telescope, A Takahashi TOA 130.
If you are interested in my Older scopes with a chronology, Please Click Here.
While the larger telescopes had plenty of light gathering power, they either lacked in good optics/mount(LX200) or had good optics that were hard to maintain collimation(Intes Mak-Newt).
I have moved to a smaller telescopes, with good optics, and little to no tweaking. Living in the Pacific northwest, we are limited to clear dark nights, so I would rather spend my time using the
telescopes rather than tweaking them. So in that vane, this page will change over time as I upgrade my optics to bigger better telescopes. I will stick to refractors, as they are the least
trouble to get up and running, whether at home in the observatory or away in the dark places I go to.
My Main Telescope: The TOA!!
The TOA-130 a 5.1"/130mm APO Refractor. This is one of the finest telescopes made today. Made in Japan by Takahashi. One of the most color free refractors on the market,
The views are just spectacular! I cannot say enough good things about this refractor. I think I will have this one for a while. The only thing that would tempt me to
change would be more aperture, and then it would have to be to the TOA-150.. :)
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| Telescope Specifications: |
| Tube Diameter: |
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155 mm / 7 inches |
| Tube Length: |
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901mm / 35.5 inches |
| Focuser: |
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4" with Camera Angle Adapter |
| Focal Length: |
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1000mm |
| Objective Size: |
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130mm / 5.1 inch |
| Focal Ratio: |
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F/7.7 |
| Weight: |
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10kg / 22 lbs |
| Resolving Power: |
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0.89" |
| Limiting Magnitude: |
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12.3 |
| Objective: |
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Ortho-Apochromat Air Spaced Triplet |
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My Travel/Field Telescope
William Optics Zenithstar 105 Oil Spaced Triplet Apochromatic refractor with a Starlight Instruments Feathertouch Focuser.
While the William Optics focuser is a serviceable focuser, I found it couldn't hold my imaging train without slippage. Especially when remote focusing.
So I commissioned Werner Schmidt (Starlight Instruments) to make me an adapter to put a Feathertouch focuser in it's place. He did an excellent job!!!
When I go out into the field, this is the telescope I take, along with a GM-8 mount on the G-11 tripod.
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| Telescope Specifications: |
| Tube Diameter: |
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114 mm / 4.5 inches |
| Tube Length: |
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580mm / 22.80 inches |
| Focal Length: |
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735mm |
| Objective Size: |
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105mm / 4 inch |
| Focal Ratio: |
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F/7 |
| Weight: |
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4.3kg / 9.5 lbs |
| Resolving Power: |
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1.05" |
| Objective: |
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Air Spaced Triplet ED APO |
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Main Mount:
The mount is a Losmandy G-11 with Gemini. This is mounted on a permanent pier in my observatory. It never leaves...
When I go out into the field, I use my GM-8 on the G-11's tripod. The GM-8 is set up for the Gemini, and I bring it
over from the G-11 when I go out into the field. Much more economical this way.
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Camera Setup:
For the imaging, I started with Meade's LPI (Lunar Planetary Imager),
but it quickly became obvious that although it was a good starter system,
and as the name implies, it did good on Planets, but it didn't do well on
deep space, which is my passion. So my wife gave me a SBIG (Santa Barbara
Instruments Group) ST7XME camera system for my birthday. Of course the camera is only grayscale, so the next gift I received was
the CFW8a (Color Filter Wheel). I later added an AO-7 (Adaptive Optics) for image stabilization.
I have since upgraded the camera to an ST2000XM, the filter wheel to the CFW10, so I could keep all my filters in the wheel unit,
now I have L,R,G,B,Ha,SII,OIII filters mounted in the wheel (all Astrodons). I have sold the AO-7 and added the Astrodon MMOAG for guiding.
I also have a newer Williams Optics Petzval 66 a small SD refractor I will try for a guide scope. Maybe even some wide field?? We shall see.
I will post pictures when I get a chance.
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In Closing:
Well, there you go, that is my current setup.
Most of my imaging is done from my backyard observatory.
I have a good view of the south to south-east,
west (south-west is a cedar tree),
north (north-east to east is house and trees).
So most of my imaging starts as the object
moves above my house to the west.
I usually only get about 3 hours on an object,
depending on how high it is in the sky.
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