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My Main Telescope - C14 and Paramount ME

My new Paramount MyT and 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

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My Meade 12 inch SCT on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

My 4 inch Meade Refractor with Sky Watcher Guidescope and ZWO camera on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mount with Canon 40D

 

My Solar setup using a DSLR and Mylar Filter on my ETX90

DSLR attached to ETX90. LiveView image of 2015 partial eclipse on Canon 40D

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 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Tuesday
Jul012014

Day 101 Tuesday 1st July 2014 CGEM setup with 4 inch refractor and guider.

DateTuesday, July 1, 2014 at 10:45AM

No imaging last night - cloud set in and put an end to it. A bright sunny day today however. Now that the C14 and Paramount are set up I am aiming to set up the 4 inch refractor. This is its current state.

Note the two cannons which prevent the telescope from being blown over! The telescope now has the Skywatcher 80mm and ZWO guiding camera attached. It also has a base for a Telrad - I have two Telrads between 3 telescopes and 3 Telrad bases permanently attached. The setup also has the adjustable guidesope mount which I think will make a tremendous difference to aligning the guidescope! See this extensive review. I have also fitted the polar finderscope which I have yet to use.

The elastic cords are simply stored there not part of the structure!

The guiding camera can work as a guider or an imager.

The modified Canon camera is the main instrument in this setup.

 The Celestron polar finder telescope is screwed in and has a focuser.

 Unfortunately cloud set in as it grew dark but it gave me just enough time to use the polar alignment scope to match Ursa Major against its pattern and to centre Polaris in the offset circle to give polar alignment.At the next clear opportunity I will use the CGEM polar alignment routine to enhance alignment.

 

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