My Astrogear

I am often asked what equipment I use for astrophotography.  Here's a partial list along with how it is used.


Telescopes


TEC160FL - used for visual use at Star Parties, astrophotography of deep space objects, planets and the Moon, and photosphere imaging of the Sun

TEC140ED - used for astrophotography primarily of deep space objects. Fitted with and EAF

Celestron C9.25 EDGE HD - used for EAA, astrophotography of deep space objects, planets and the Moon. Fitted with EAF. I also have a V4 Hyperstar which reduces the focal ratio from F10 to F2.2

Lunt 100MT - used primarily for hydrogen alpha (Chromosphere) imaging of the Sun. Also used for solar star parties visually, and occasionally for deep space object astrophotography.

Askar FRA400 72mm quintuplet astrograph - used for wide field astrophotography


Mounts

 

TracktheStars TTS160 - used primarily for EAA and visual. Also planetary imaging with my Celestron or TEC160FL. Also used for solar imaging

ZWO AM5 (2) - used primarily for solar and deep space imaging with my Celestron and TEC140ED telescopes.  I have not found this suitable for EAA.

ZWO AM3 - used for astrophotography with my Askar telescope

 

Cameras


ZWO 2600MCPro - used for wide field imaging

ZWO 2600M Pro Duo - used for wide field imaging

ZWO 183MC Pro - used for imaging galaxies, globular cluster, small to intermediately sized objects

Player One Uranus-C - used for high speed planetary capture

Player One Saturn SQR-M - used for solar imaging at intermediate F ratios and smaller narrowband deep space objects

Player One Mars - M - used for solar imaging at low F ratios

Player One Apollo M - used for high F ratio solar imaging


Night Vision


L3 Gen III White Phosphor Filmless Image Intensifier - this is a special device that magnifies light 65,000x and replaces an eyepiece on your telescope. It effectively triples the actual aperture of the telescope allowing you to see details like galaxy dust lanes and nebula filaments that would be otherwise invisible.  Its use is ITAR restricted.  I use it at visual star parties to show objects and details that would otherwise require a telescope aperture 3-4x what I'm using.


Filters


Optolong L-Pro - light pollution mitigation

Optolong L-Enhance - Ha/OIII narrowband filter for OSC cameras

IDAS NBZ - fast F-ratio optimized 12nm narrowband filter for OSC cameras

Antlia Tri-band RGB filter - fast F-ratio optimized light pollution suppression filter for broadband targets

Antlia ALP-T 5nm dual band (Ha/OIII) narrowband filter - for narrowband targets


Other


Many eyepieces, 3 ASIAirs, adapters, binoculars, guide scopes, batteries, cables, etc