Starry Nights Equipment

Equipment

This is my current setup consisting of a 16" f/8.3 R C Optical Systems Ritchey-Chretien including field flattener and rotator, an SBIG STL11000M CCD camera including the adaptive optics unit (AO-L) on Don Goldman's manual off-axis guider (MOAG), and an AstroPhysics AP1200GTO-CP3. All this sits on Advanced Telescope Systems (ATS) piers - I use their portable pier at Cherry Springs State Park PA or wherever I travel and I also have their permanent pier at my getaway home in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the Pocono Palace. I recently acquired a Takahashi Epsilon E-180 for wide field imaging but it's not yet integrated into the system.

This system operates unattended so I can get a decent night's sleep either in my van when portable or in the Palace when I'm up there. I use my own CCDNavigator for selecting targets and planning imaging sessions and CCDAutoPilot3 for executing them. In addition I use the RCOS TCC to manage the telescope fans, focuser and rotator, FocusMax for focusing, PoleAlignMax for getting polar aligned, MaxImDL for camera control and TheSky6 for mount control.

I recently built the "Out Haus Observatory" at our getaway home in the Pocono Mountains. As you can see, it consists of two sections that slide apart to uncover the telescope. By parking the telescope vertically, a very small footprint is possible, the Out Haus Observatory is a mere 3' wide by 6' long and is 5' tall at the walls, 6' tall at the center. I recently (12/2007) motorized the Out Haus Observatory so I can close it from inside our home. Since the two sections are sized and look like outhouses the name should be obvious. But if not, the "First Light" photo sez it all....

"First Light"

Earlier Systems

My brother in law, John Weaver, got me interested in astronomy while I was in graduate school (circa 1974). He really loved astronomy and infected me with it.

I started doing astronomy after coming to Bell Laboratories in 1978 with a 10" f/6 newtonian which I assembled from commercial components. It was first placed on a homemade fork mount made of 2" pipe. I began almost immediately to attempt astrophotography. My first photograph used the 10" f/6 fork mounted newtonian with Tri-X at the prime focus. It was not motorized but I had rigged a tangent arm and a manual crank which I turned by hand for the right ascension drive! I simply taped the Tri-X over the end of the focuser, started cranking and pulled a scarf off the end of the tube! My first astrophoto was of M13, you can see that here.

I met my good friend Frank Loso at Stellafane in 1980. Frank has probably had the greatest "Astronomical" influence on me over the years. Kay Sears was with him at the time. They invited me to a S*T*A*R meeting and the rest is history. Kay was a good mentor and always had a kind word for my crazy ideas. Never critical, Kay was always interested in whatever you were trying to do and would always have a good suggestion for you. Kay passed away in 1999, I will always miss him.

When the Dobsonian era started, I converted the 10" to a Dob. My friend Larry Campbell in S*T*A*R has that scope now. I replaced it with a Celestron C8 which I used for several years until I bought a Meade 7" LX50 Maksutov. Some might say this was steady down-hill progress!

I also did a lot of barndoor photography, first with a manually driven hand crank (I still have this and use it on occasion) and later with the slick little homemade motorized barndoor shown here. This barndoor has been around the world several times including two trips to Australia. It uses a curved bolt drive.

I did some manual guiding with the C8 using an off-axis guider for both prime focus and piggyback photographs but can now only find a few of the images. During all of this era, I used Ektachrome 400 film

During 1998, I got inspired to do some "real" astrophotography thanks to David Segelstein. David is a friend and fellow club member of S*T*A*R and has taken some really fine astrophotographs. Another really great fellow S*T*A*R imager is Gordon Waite, check out his CCD images.

At the outset, I tried this with my LX50 Mak and a Meade 410XT CCD camera but this proved to be an impossibility due to the pathetic drive in the LX50 and its slow f/15 optics. There was around 120 arcseconds of periodic error and much of it was very erratic and fast which made it impossible to guide accurately. I also tried to use the Meade 201XT autoguider, a nightmare I hope others will avoid. The 201XT holds the record as the least usable product in this hobby. I could write a book about this. If you want to autoguide, get the SBIG ST-4 or STV. This photo shows what I wanted to do to my 201XT (kudos to Rich Michaels who actually smashed his 201XT out of frustration).

Anyway, in 1998, I cashed in the LX50 and bought the system you see here. The MI-250 is a terrific mounting that can carry all sorts of optical tubes. The MI-250 has only 6-7 arcseconds of periodic error, what an amazing mount.My first OTA for the MI-250 was the Meade 12" f/10 SCT. I started out using it for astrophotography along with the Lumicon Giant Easy Guider but the images just weren't as good as I was seeking, the star images were bloated and irregular due to coma and other abberations. But the 12" is good for visual observing so I still have it.

I also use an old Nikon F2 which is equipped with the highly vaunted 6x viewer and a "D" focusing screen. I focus using a ronchi grating in a homemade knife-edge focuser. I built this using a cheap 2x telextender for the Nikon so it just attaches directly on the t-ring. It uses a t-threaded section which can be adjusted. To calibrate it, I used a piece of film under a glass plate directly on the back of the camera.

When fully assembled, this puppy weighs in at 230 lbs but I can pack all of it in my car. Yep, it completely fills the trunk and most of the back seat!. I also use a 120 A-H RV battery to power all this stuff. It can get me through a couple of night observing without a recharge.

This is my BRC-250 AP1200 6x9 film setup. The Takahashi BRC-250 is a 10" f/5 astrograph (Baker-Ritchie-Chretien) that I purchased during August 2000 from Herb York at Anacortes. The mounting is an Astro Physics AP1200GTO that I purchased used during 2002. The Mitsuboshi off-axis guider couples to an STV for guiding and to a 6x9 vacuum film back. This came from Ted Ishikawa at Hutech. I use two film backs, each have purge and vacuum fittings.. The vacuum keeps the 6x9 film flat against the backplate. On the ground to the right is the nitrogen tank and the vacuum pump. The STV and my notebook PC are sitting on a homemade stand that doubles as a cart for the battery (next to the nitrogen tank). The pier is the Advanced Telescope Systems 10" pier with a height of 30". The battery is a deep cycle marine battery with 180 A-H rating. It can get me through a night easily, sometime two. Built into the battery box is a dew controller that measures the temperature of the optics and that of the air. It keeps the optics slightly warmer than the air so dew does not form.

I use two 6x9 cm film backs, one with Tech Pan and the other with E200 which I alternate at the prime focus. Shortly, I hope to have a piggy back arrangement so that the unused film back can be imaging wide angle fields with a Pentax 67 lens. I used an ST-10XE on the BRC CCD imaging for a while.

I used this setup from 2003 until 2007. It consisted of a 12.1" f/9.3 R C Optical Systems Ritchey-Chretien including field flattener and rotator, an SBIG STL11000 CCD camera including the adaptive optics unit (AO-L) on Don Goldman's manual off-axis guider (MOAG), and an AstroPhysics AP1200GTO-CP3, the King of portable equatorial mounts. All this sits on Advanced Telescope Systems (ATS) piers - I use their portable pier at Cherry Springs State Park PA or wherever I travel and I also have their permanent pier at my getaway home in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the Pocono Palace. I recently acquired a Takahashi Epsilon E-180 for wide field imaging but it's not yet integrated into the system.

Clear Skies!

Steve...