CCD Astronomy: Equipment

Equipment

Telescopes

I have recently bought a second-hand Orion Optics DX 300, which is a 300 mm (12 inch) Newtonian reflector, at f/4. For more details you can look at the Orion Optics web site
The telescope is on Losmandy G11 equatorial mount with dual axis drives.
In addition I have a Skywatcher 80 mm ED80 refractor which is shown below with a piggybacked Canon EOS 350D DSLR (with a Canon 100-400 mm IS lens on it)

Atik 2HS CCD Camera

This is a black & white modified webcam with high sensitivity. I have had this since January 2006, but it is not straightforward to get this working with Microsoft Vista! It is shown below with the Atik x0.5 focal reducer attached.

Atik 16 ic-s Colour CCD Camera

This is also an Atik camera, with cooling, but is colour. It has a larger sensor than the Atik 2HS and the pixels are larger too. This enables a wider field of view, particular if a focal reducer is used. This camera also has an autoguiding port. It is shown below with the Atik x0.5 focal reducer attached.

Other Cameras

I also have a Canon EOS 350D, since March 2006.

Old Cameras

Over the years I have also used a standard Philips webcam (mainly for planetary work) and a SAC-7 colour CCD camera, which is the first long exposure webcam I used for deepsky photography. Some photos of these setups are shown below (attached to an 8" Orion Optics f/6 Newtonian reflector)