My Telescopes: Over the years... Well, since you decided to come over to this page, I guess you are interested in the telescopes I have used over the limited years I have been into astrophotography. While I have only been into Astronomy since 2002 and Astrophotography since 2004, I have tried a few telescopes along the way. I actually have been interested in Astronomy for many years. I had a 50mm department store refractor that sat in my family room for many years. Once and a while I would take it out and look at the moon, but I would get annoyed at losing the moon after a few moments. Then in 2002, my wife was wondering what to get me for Christmas, and I mentioned I would love to try out a telescope that could track the moon and stars across the sky, so I could enjoy the objects without losing them in the eyepiece. Not wanting to spend a large amount of money on something that I might not keep my interest in, I pointed her to a small meade telescope. Namely the ETX-70. A small goto refractor. While this telescope was small, it was very easy to set up. I could grab it and put it on the deck and be looking at various stars, planets, clusters and anything else I could find using the Autostar goto of the telescope. I was a definite new guy at the stars. Heck I could only tell you where the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia were. Orion, what was that? This little telescope got me hooked on astronomy. I used it for a little over a year before I decided to move up in size. So I went out and spent a few more dollars, OK actually a lot more dollars and purchased a new 8" LX200 Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain. Now this was a real beast compared to my ETX-70, but boy could I see more at the eyepiece. It took a bit longer to set up, but I managed it for a couple of years. The Deck was no longer a viable place to set up, since the slightest movement would make the image in the eyepiece jump around horribly. So I started setting up in the yard. At first I would take the telescope out in pieces, First I set up the tripod, then the telescope went out and it was setup. In total it took me about 30 minutes to get ready for a night of viewing. This, in itself made the nights out very limited. I live in Washington State, where cloudy skies are the norm. So I searched the internet and found some Ideas to speed up the setup process. I ended up setting the system up in the house and went to Lowes and got me a hand truck. After making up some brackets and ties, I had a more portable setup. Down to 10 minutes for a night of viewing. This is when I decided to try my hand at Astrophotography. Since the LX200 came with an LPI (Lunar Planetary Imager), I took an old laptop out with me and gave it a try. You can see the results in the Solar system images section. I borrowed a Sac 7b camera from a friend to give it a whirl, and that was a bit better than the LPI. I then heard about the TouCam (a web cam) and tried it. Most images in the Solar System Images section were taken with these three cameras. Soon I found the need for a better and of course, a more expensive camera. With my birthday coming up (May 2004), my wife, again looking for something to get me for my birthday, asked and I pointed her to a SBIG ST7XME monochrome astrophotography camera. I used this camera with my LX200 for a year or more until I realized I needed a better telescope for astrophotography. During this time, I built my observatory for a more permanent place to keep my telescope. The LX200 was a nice visual scope, but the tracking was not optimal for astrophotography. So I sold the LX200 (Thank goodness for Astromart!!) and purchased a used MN74 and a Losmandy G-11 Gemini mount. I also took this opportunity to upgrade my camera to an ST2000XM. (The st7 was 800X600 the ST2000 is 1600x1200 pixels) So I quadrupled the size of the chip. The mount was a new concept to me, having never used an equatorial mount before it was a steep learning curve. The MN74 also was a new concept, with the Newtonian telescopes and the fact the eyepiece/camera connection was on the side of the telescope instead of the end of the telescope. This made it difficult to balance the scope and even more difficult to collimate. This last statement was the demise of the MN-74. I spent way too much time trying to collimate the scope and could never get it quite right. When I did, it wouldn't last more than a day or two. Since I was having a hard time with the MN74 and because it was too large to transport into the field when I went out to dark sites, I decided to purchase a Televue 85, which is an APO Refractor. I also purchased a Celestron CG-5 mount for it. While this refractor was quite small, (85 mm vs 180mm)it had much better optics than the MN74 and never needed collimation. The mount, however, left a lot to be desired. So after a long minute of thinking, I decided to sell the MN-74 and the CG-5 mount and move up to a larger refractor, and get a losmandy GM-8 for field use. So I purchased, or actually I traded the MN-74 for a Williams Optics Zenithstar 105 APO triplet (and some cash my way). I used the cash from the trade and the sale of the CG-5 to purchase a used GM-8. I sold off the DSC from the GM-8 and now use the Gemini system from the G-11 for both mounts. I used this setup for about a year, after sending he 105's optics to Taiwan for cleaning and collimation. I have to give Kudos to William Optics, they were very fast in taking care of the optics and sending them back to me. I think the total turn around time was 3 weeks. Even out of warrantee, they took care of it without any charge to me. However, while I waited for the optics to return, I needed a telescope for a trip I was making to dark skies, and came across a Pentax 105 SD. Having heard really good things about this line of telescopes, I traded my Televue 85 and some cash for it, figuring to sell off one of the two (William Optics 105 or Pentax 105) when I returned and received the optics back from William Optics. While the telescope was in need of some work to the focuser, which I took care of, It was not up to my expectations, and after some comparisons between the two telescope, I decided to keep the William Optics and sell off the Pentax telescope. And that brings me to the now. I finally decided that everything was working great, and all I needed was a larger refractor. I looked at several options, including the TeleVue 127is, the William Optic 130, a TEC 140, But I finally opted to wait and get the Takahashi TOA-130. This is a telescope I had wanted for a few years. Now it is housed in my observatory, on top of my G-11 Gemini. And things are good!!
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