My Kit:
- Skywatcher EQ6 Pro (The workhorse)
- Skywatcher ED80 (Astrophotography for the masses)
- William Optics ZS66
- Celestron C6 SCT
- Modified Canon 450D (with Astrodon Inside Filter)
- Modified Canon 350D (with Baader filter)
Of course there are quite a few cables and accessories to go with this lot but I'm not going to list them here. I'm not much of a visual observer but occasionally I use an 11.75" Fullerscopes Newtonain on a dob mount.
Set up and ready to go at the 5th annual Stargazerslounge star party
Mount
SkyWatcher EQ6 Pro:
A superb mount which is easily the best in it's price range. When used with my kit it is well within its comfort zone and could be stretched quite a bit further. I use the mount with EQMOD, and run it with Cartes Du Ciel on the laptop and logitech gamepad.
Telescopes
Skywatcher ED80:
My main deep sky imaging scope.
An 80mm apochromatic doublet refractor; the main element is FPL-53 ED glass and the second element is Schott glass. The focuser is a single speed MoonLite - in my opinion one of the best make of focuser around, amazingly well made and performs flawlessly.
William Optics ZS66:
Used when a wide field of view (FOV) is required and as a guidescope.
A 66mm apochromatic doublet refractor; Ohara SD glass for both elements. It has a good flat field and is fast (F/4.7) when used with a WO flattener/reducer II.
Celestron C6 SCT:
My lunar/planetary and longer focal length DSO scope.
A compact 6" Schmidt Cassegrain type telescope with Celestron's XLT coatings to improve light transmission. It does suffer from slight mirror slop and therefore focus shift which means focus must be checked throughout an imaging run.
Cameras
Modified Canon 450D:
Completed the modification of this myself using the instructions on Gary Honis's website and an Astrodon Inside filter. Currently waiting for first light but will hopefully become my main imaging camera. I've upgraded from the 350D to the 450D as the camera has greatly reduced fixed pattern noise, it suffers from no amp glow and has LiveView to ease focussing.
Modified Canon 350D:
A great camera perfect for making a good start in astrophotography, which, when used with calibration frames can produce amazingly high quality images. This camera has been modified to replace the original Canon IR cut filter with one made by Baader. This filter has nearly full transmission in the H-Alpha wavelength, very common in emission nebulae. This eliminates the only major disadvantage of using this type of camera producing much better results than a standard camera.
