Astronomy Equipment
It's no secret. Taking high resolution photos of objects buried deep in the night sky requires some pretty serious equipment. Here's what I use to do it.
Most of my imaging sessions take place from my observatory at the Riverside Astronomical Society's dark sky site, GMARS, in Landers, California. It's a 10' x 12' roll-off roof observatory.
- Observatory
- Takahashi TOA-150B 6" f/7.33 Double ED Triplet Ortho Apochromatic refractor
- Takahashi FS-60Q Quadruplet Double ED refractor (as guide scope)
- Software Bisque Paramount ME II German Equatorial Mount
- FLI ML11002-1-C camera with 65mm shutter and ADT
- Optec Gemini Rotating Focuser
- SBIG ST-i Autoguider (monochrome)
- Durango Skies Custom 10" O.D. x 28" steel pier
- Mobile
- Takahashi FSQ-106ED X-III 4.1" Flatfield Super Quadruplet Apochromatic refractor
- Takahashi Epsilon-180ED 7.1" Corrected Newtonian Astrograph
- Stellarvue SV80S Triplet Super Apochromatic refractor
- Meade 10" LX200-ACF Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope
- Astro-Physics Mach 1 GTO-CP3 German Equatorial Mount and Astro-Physics Eagle adjustable folding pier
- Sky-Watcher USA Star Adventurer single-axis mount
- FLI ML08051-C camera with 43mm shutter
- Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR camera
- Astronomy Lenses and Camera Accessories
- Prime Lenses
- 14mm Rokinon f/2.8 IF ED UMC (AE)
- 24mm Rokinon f/1.4 IF ED UMC
- 40mm Canon EF f/2.8 STM pancake
- 85mm Rokinon f/1.4 AS IF UMC
- 100mm Canon EF f/2.8L Macro IS USM
- 200mm Canon EF f/2.8L II USM
- Zoom Lenses
- 16-35mm Canon EF f/2.8L II USM
- 24-105mm Canon EF f/4L II IS USM
- 150-600mm Tamron f/5.0-6.3 SP Di VC USD G2
- Canon EF 2x Telextender II
- Promote Control, Satechi and Neewer intervalometers
- Manfrotto tripods and heads
- Computer Hardware & Software
- Home Desktop: CyberPowerPC Studio 300Z C Series, MSI Z590 Pro WiFi ARGB system board, Intel i9 11900KF LGA1200 3.50 GHz CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, EVGA nVidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 GPU, 1TB GigaByte AORUS NVMe M.2 Gen 4 SSD, Seagate Ironwolf Pro 4TB 3.5" SATAIII 7200RPM, Dual 32" 4k Dell curved monitors, Windows 11 Pro
- Observatory: ASUS PN51 MiniPC, AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with Radeon Graphics, 32GB RAM DDR4, Intel 670P Series M.2 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Pro
- Mobile: Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 laptop, Intel Core i7-1260P, 16GB RAM, nVidia GeForce MX550 GPU, 3840x2400 OLED 16" display, Windows 11 Home
- TheSkyX Professional with T-Point and Camera Add-Ons by Software Bisque
- MaxIm DL Pro by Diffraction Limited/Cyanogen
- ImagesPlus by Mike Unsold
- Photoshop by Adobe
- Other Accessories
- Takahashi 0.73x Reducer QE for FSQ-106ED X-III
- Technical Innovations RoboFocus
- All-Pro Spike-a™ LED Flat-Fielder Panel
- Adapters from Precise Parts
- Tele Vue eyepieces, Powermates, and 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (TRF-2008)
- Edmund Optics RKE eyepieces
- Rings, plates, and saddles by Losmandy, SocalAstro, Robin Casady, and Takahashi
- Cases by Pelican & Scopeguard
- Custom designed and built AC AstroBox
- Custom designed and built DC AstroBox
- Remote/mobile power:
- Bluetti Power Station EB70S 800W Solar Generator (716Wh LiFePo4 Battery Pack with 4 110V AC Outlets, 12V and USB outlets)
- 120W portable solar panel suitcase
- Two 18Ah SLA batteries for DSLRs and/or Star-Adventurer mount
- Anker PowerCore chargers for charging and/or powering various items
