Post Your Astronomy Equipment List Here!

[admin]

Hey everyone,
just curious what everyone has mine is quite short right now (not that it was long before! ) as i have moved to study abroad.


- Dobson Skywatcher 10"
- 10 X 70 Binocs


I bet Philip, Carlos and Michael have a long one...

[Michael Steen]

No, not a long one at all--yet.
11X70 Oberwerk binos
Sky Window mirror and mount for use with binos (SUPERIOR PRODUCT!!)
Orion XT10 telescope with a moon filter.
I'm soon going to add a green laser pointer and mount for use with the binos and SkyWindow. Aiming that puppy at a particular star is pretty tricky.

[Carlos_dfc]

OK - not exactly a lot of big aperture (yet) but here goes...

Tasco 60mm f/800 refractor
Very old - I dug it out of the attic about 8 years ago, and the view of Saturn got me back 'into' astronomy.

Bresser 70mm f/700 refractor
I bought this at a cut-price store (Lidl) mainly for the mount - because it was very cheap (£50) and had a good mount (an EQ-2 equivalent - which alone retails at about £100) A nice surprise was that the optics aren't too bad, it had a couple of OK-ish eyepieces, and a small upright-image finderscope.

SkyWatcher 90mm f/1200 Mak-Cass
My grab'n'go scope - I usually use it on the EQ-2 mount (see above), with the upright finderscope (also above) Not a lot of aperture, but nice sharp optics, and very portable. I can easily carry it in a soft bag, and carry the mount by hand - 20 mins walk out of the town's light-dome for a darker sky.

Celestron 114mm f/500 newtonian
I bought this as a short-tube 'Firstscope 114' package, on EQ-1 mount.
Soon realised the optics were very poor (a couple of decent eyepieces in the package though) due to the combination of cheap spherical main mirror, combined with a barlow built into the focuser to give it a 1000mm focal length. I removed that built-in barlow, and shortened the back of the tube by 3/4", so that it would come to focus at the spherical mirror's 'natural' 500mm f/l.
As a result, it's no good at high powers, but is fine as a low-power portable widefield scope - I love viewing open clusters visually, and this is ideal up to about 50x or 60x

The 90mm Mak, and 114mm widefield newtonian complement each other nicely as low-power, and high-power portable specialists.

SkyWatcher ED100 f/900 apo-chromatic refractor
Very high quality 4" refractor - superb apo-chromatic ED optics aren't cheap, but give fantastic planetary views - an excellent double-star splitter, and the superior contrast you get from ED optics mean it also punches well above it's weight at deep sky - it will keep up with a 6" reflector if there's any appreciable light-pollution.

SkyWatcher Explorer 150 f/750 newtonian
This was my first 'serious' telescope when the Tasco prompted me to get back 'into' astronomy, and I realised that a decent telescope these days is much cheaper than they used to be.
Doesn't get so much use these days, but I still give it an occasional workout if I'm somewhere dark, and want reasonable aperture, with a 'tracking' mount.

I use either the ED100, or Explorer 150, on a EQ3-2 equatorial mount, with tracking motors

Home-built 10" f/1250 Dobsonian reflector
I was alerted to the mirror going cheap, by a friend - only £25, but needed the surface re-coating (£30)
So for £55 I got a very high quality parabolic mirror (1/8th wavefront)
A friend in Hawaii sent me a secondary 'spider' support he had spare, I also bought a good quality secondary, and a Crayford focuser - then built it all up into a 12-sided section tube. Dob-mount also home-built.
This is obviously my main deep-sky telescope.

Eyepieces
A wide selection of EPs that came in scope packages...
Skywatcher 25mm, 20mm, 10mm (x2)
Celestron 25mm, 12mm, 6mm
Bresser 20mm, 12mm, 6mm
Bresser 1.5x erecting barlow (handy for terrestrial birdwatching)
Tasco 25mm, 12.5mm, 4mm
Of these, the SkyWatcher 25mm plossl, and Bresser 6mm Kellner are the pick of the bunch

Bought seperately....
Baader Hyperion, 21mm, 13mm, 8mm - plus a couple of extension rings that change the focal length of the Hyperions.
I can't praise these eyepieces enough - fantastic quality, and VERY versatile.
Can also be used as either 2" or 1.25" thanks to adapter
Baader 7mm Orthoscopic - killer-sharp planetary eyepiece.
Antares 5.7mm W70 - wide-angle, high power eyepiece, with a nice big eye-lens. So much nicer than squinting into a tiny hole like you have to do with most short f/l eyepieces.
Antares 40mm 2" wide-angle
2" diagonal for the ED100, 3x 1.25" diagonals
And 2 aluminium foam-filled cases to house the EPs etc

Binoculars
Celestron 15x70 - great cluster-hunters
Simor 12x50
Bresser 10x50
Meade 10x50
Practika 7x50
The Meade 10x50s live in my car permanently - so I almost always have a decent pair of bins handy
*note* Bresser and Meade 10x50s are identical apart from manufacturer's logo
Along with Weaver and Simmons, Meade and Bresser are owned by the same company.

Filters
Variable polariser - tweak JUST the right amount of darkening, much better than standard Moon-filter
Celestron LPR - Light pollution reducer - Very aggressive, needs at least 8" aperture
Baader Neodymium - combination contrast booster, and mild light-pollution filter. VERY versatile, nowhere near as aggressive as a dedicated LP filter, 95% throughput of good light, so can be used even with small apertures. Contrast boosting properties make it also good for planet detail, and star clusters.
Selection of coloured planetary filters - pale blue, green, red, orange, yellow
Baader astrosolar 5.0 film sun-filters to fit ED100, 90mm Mak, and 15x70 binocs.

Plus the usual selection of bits and bobs....
Books, charts, red flashlights, red goggles, software, etc....

I'm not really into imaging much - I'm a traditional 'visual' guy - so no astro-specific cameras

[admin]

Carlos thats a ton of stuff!

At least me and Michael have the 10" Dobs too... i was going to grind my own mirror and build my own telescope when i began but got lazy and decided to get something decent lol

Do you recommend the Celestron LPR - Light pollution reducer for viewing deep sky objects with a 10" Dob or is it better to do without?

[Carlos_dfc]

Originally Posted by admin

Carlos thats a ton of stuff!

You'll be amazed just how quick it all builds up once you get into it.

BTW, that's me peeking over the business end of my ED100 in my avatar pic

[Carlos_dfc]

Originally Posted by admin

Do you recommend the Celestron LPR - Light pollution reducer for viewing deep sky objects with a 10" Dob or is it better to do without?

Not really - wish I hadn't got it - it's just TOO aggressive
Even with the 10" it does dim the image overall quite a lot, and gives a strange colour-cast too (blue/green)

Baader Neodymium is far better, or if you are prepared to spend a bit more..
Baader's UHC-S for galaxies and emission nebulae - or their O-III for planetary nebs, and diffuse nebs like the 'Veil', 'North America Neb' etc...

If I was allowed ONLY ONE filter - it would be the Neodymium, without a doubt.
Boosts contrast and makes EVERYTHING stand out better against the background sky - helps to show detail in spiral galaxies, sahpe to nebulae, boosts subtle colour-variations on planet surfaces.....
THE best bang-for-the-buck filter out there.

[admin]

thanks for the great info Carlos eventually ill save up and get a filter for the city,
just curious in your avatar pic, which scope is that?

cheers

[Carlos_dfc]

Originally Posted by admin

just curious in your avatar pic, which scope is that?

It's my ED100
One of these...
[Registered users can see links. ]

I got the non-GoTo version though (to keep the price down a bit)

[admin]

thats a really nice scope Carlos, can you buy the Goto separately/later with it?

[Carlos_dfc]

Yep - an add-on GoTo is available for around £300 ($600-ish)

To be honest though - for me, GoTo would be a bit of a waste, I'm now at the stage where I can find pretty much anything I want to view (as long as the scope is capable of showing it)

I'm currently torn as to what I save for next - maybe an even bigger Dob (14"-16"), or a SCT of around 11"-12".
That is a lo-o-o-o-ong way in the future though - money is tight right now, and I'm also in the middle of building a small observatory in my backyard - so all spare 'hobby' cash is going into that right now.
The Outer 'shell' is built - I'm still kitting out the interior - looking for a cheap steel pedestal to mount the scopes on at the moment - currently just using a tripod, but would like a permanent pier, with a polar-aligned equatorial head.
Slow going - but at least the stars aren't going anywhere anytime soon - LOL