telescopes


I now have a Takahashi FS102 f8 flourite apochromatic refractor, a superb, high quality scope that should last for a while.

My main scope is a Vixen VC200L VISAC (Vixen Sixth-Order Aspherical Catadioptric) system. This is a 6kg tube with a 200mm aperture and a focal length of 1800mm giving a focal ratio of f9. The VISAC optical system is basically composed of a concave primary mirror and a convex secondary mirror, with a 3-element field corrector in the focus draw tube.

The VC200 has an extremely large flat field, which makes it perfect for astrophotography. I've also got a focal reducer specifically for this scope, as it would have been a shame to waste that huge flat field by compromising on a cheaper focal reducer. The reducer takes the optics from a focal ratio of f9 down to f6.4 - again ideal for astrophotography.

My other scope is a TeleVue TV76 apochromatic refractor. It has a 76mm aperture at f6.3 giving a focal length of 480mm. This is a lovely little scope, very high quality optics and very solidly built. I think I'll be keeping this one for quite a while :-)

These 2 scopes combined with the cameras, mean I have a really wide range of fields of view to choose from. Excellent from an imaging point of view as I can choose the targets I want to image, rather than being limited by the focal length of a single scope or camera combination.

At the moment I've got a Celestron G-11 mount. This is basically a G-11 made by Losmandy for Celestron. I bought it second hand in a sale that included a Celestron C-11 scope! That was a huge tube! But it was too big for my requirements, so I swapped it very quickly for the TV76 refractor.

The G-11 is a BIG mount, with a load carrying capacity. This is a good thing as I now have a lot of kit sitting up on top! I've also got a Losmandy DSBS side-by-side dovetail plate that allows 2 scopes to be mounted at the same time and have full adjustment of the lot to allow for proper balancing.


Here's a of shot of the new Takahashi FS102. It's a very high quality apochromatic flourite refractor with a focal length of 830mm.

Click on the image for the larger versions.



Here are a couple of shots of the latest rig. G-11 with a Losmandy side-by-side plate loaded up with VC200L and the TV76. The SXV camera is in the VC200L and the SC3 ToUcam (now relegated to guiding duties usually) in the TV76.




Here's is one of my previous setups, including the Williams Optics Megrez 80SD refractor (now sold). Lovely little scope this is with a focal length of 480mm f6. Here it's mounted side-by-side with the VC200L on a piece of flat aluminium plate. This worked quite well as it reduced the moment of the whole setup, but it was a pig to get proper balance with.




Here are a few quick shots of my Losmandy GM-8 carrying the Vixen VC200L, with the Konus 80mm short tube refractor piggy-back mounted and a 50mm SLR lens piggy-back mounted to that.




My first telescope was a Meade ETX 105EC Maksutov Cassegrain with UHTC coatings.

The ETX-105 had a focal length of 1450mm and a focal ratio of f14, mounted on the Meade delux field tripod. It came equipped with the Autostar computer control system (running version 3.1Ee software). I quite liked this little scope :-)

I've got the use of an ETX-90RA, and a Konus 80mm f5 short tube refractor. Both of these were kindly 'donated' by my Dad.

Initially I thought I might try to piggyback the ST80 on my ETX-105, but thought better of that. Then I thought I might try to modify the ETX-90 mount to take it, but the mount tracks in RA only, and would be a lot more difficult to use than a goto setup.

So I decided to upgrade my whole setup :-)