My Telescopes, Images and Information

MY EQUIPMENT/SOFTWARE

Celestron Nexstar 11GPS f/10 SCT OTA, formerly a fork mounted GOTO telescope now dismounted and placed on an HDX-110 GEM

SBIG ST-8XE NABG CCD camera and CFW8A color filter wheel with Astrodon LRGB filter set and Astronomik 13nm Ha filter

ATIK 383L Mono CCD Camera and EFW10 filter wheel with Astrodon LRGB filter set and Astronomik 13nm Ha filter

Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer for wider fields of view

Takahashi FS-78 f/8.1 refractor telescope for wide field images and viewing with a SKY90 focal reducer for an even wider FOV at f/6.4

Homemade 8" f/8.1 truss tube DOB

New Orion/SkyWatcher HDX-110 GEM mount run under EQASCOM

Orion 127mm Mak-Cas telescope

Celestron Advanced Series GoTo (AS-GT) GEM mount

Logitech Wingman Wireless Gamepad for remote wireless telescope operation

      Computer and software

HP laptop computer for imaging and telescope control under Windows 8.1

UltraVNC Server and Viewer for remote operation of scope and camera in winter

Maxim DL Pro Version 6 software for camera control and image reduction

CCDSoft 5.0 for camera control and image reduction

Astroart 4.0 for camera control, reduction, and processing

Focusmax 5.2  for multiple focusing setups.

Software Bisque The Sky Ver. 5 and 6 Level IV for telescope control and planetarium use

Photoshop CS5 for image processing with numerous plug-ins and actions

Webcams

    DMK21AU04 USBCCD Camera for lunar and planetary imaging

    NexImage CCD web-camera for lunar and planetary imaging



The Dogpatch II Roll off Roof Observatory (see links below)

• My Astro Images
• The Original Dogpatch Observatory
• Building The New Dogpatch II Observatory and Original Update
• The Latest Update to the Dogpatch II Observatory.

For the beginner or curious, some of the best web sites I've found for doing these functions:

Balancing an SCT

Collimating an SCT

Drift aligning an SCT

Balancing A GEM

For everything you ever wanted to know about collimation ..... http://www.astrophoto.fr/collim.html

Other Links:

My 1934 Ford hot rod

My work for NASA and Swales Aerospace

Boating and fishing

An Update: In March 2016, I dismounted the NexStarGPS 11" OTA from the fork ams and sold the mount and APT wedge.  I purchased an Orion HDX-110 GEM and mounted the Celestron  OTA, Tak FS-78, and ST-80 on it. The EQ-G has a 100 pound carrying capacity and direct microstepped worm gear drives on both axis. Now I'm running EQASCOM, the AstroTortilla  astrometry program, and Maxim DL Pro to control everything. I loved the NS11 and used it for 14 years it was time to move on and upgrade everything so I resigned as moderator of the NexStarGPS Yahoo group and signed up for all the relevant groups for the new build.