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The core components of my astrophotography equipment include an 11 inch f/10 Celestron CM-1100 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, a modified f/9 Orion 100 ED apochromatic refractor, an Orion 6 inch f/5 Newtonian reflector, an SBIG ST-2000XCM self-guiding single shot color camera, a Meade Deep Sky II Pro camera, a 6.3 megapixel Cannon EOS Rebel 300D digital SLR camera, and a Dell Inspiron 5000 Pentium III laptop computer.
The
Celestron CM-1100 is the main telescope and is mounted on a Celestron
CI-700 German Equatorial mount. Attached directly to the CM-1100 scope,
is the modified Orion 100 ED apochromatic refractor. The modification
that was made to the Orion scope was to shorten the OTA tube by three
inches to allow a Celestron 6.3 focal reducer to be used with this scope.
With the 6.3 focal reducer attached, this scope can be used for wide-field
astrophtography at a focal ratio of approximately f/5.7.
When imaging through the Celestron CM-1100, I use the Orion 100 ED at
its full focal length to guide on a star. Using the Orion 100ED at its
full f/9 focal length in this manner allows for greater magnification
and therefore more accurate image guiding.
When imaging through the Orion 100 ED, I usually incorporate the 6.3
focal reducer for wider field shots while guiding on a star through
the Celestron CM-1100.
To locate astronomical objects in the night sky, I use an Argo Navis
Digital Setting Circle (DSC) computer attached to the Celestron CI-700
mount. This device includes a database of over 29,000 celestial objects
and will allow the user to quickly and precisely location faint celestial
objects that are often difficult if not impossible to locate otherwise.
To capture the deep-sky astronomical images, I use a 6.1 megapixel Canon
EOS Rebel digital SLR camera remotely controlled via the Dell Laptop
running the software application, DSLR Focus.
To capture images of the moon and planets, I use a Philips Vesta Scan
webcam also attached to the Dell Laptop computer.
