Equipment
My primary observing equipment includes -
Hardware:
Software:
Hardware:
- Celestron CGE Pro 1400HD telescope and mount - permanently mounted in the observatory
- Celestron, Meade, and Orion Eyepieces - for visual observing
- JMI SCT EV-1 Crayford Focuser - for fine focusing
- Astrozap Bahtinov Mask - for precise focusing for imaging
- Astrozap Baader Solar Filter - for white-light sun viewing
- Celestron CGE Pro 1400 0.7x Focal Reducer - primarily for imaging but also for some visual use
- Astrozap Dew Cap - for dew control
- Kendrick DigiFire Dew Strip and DigiFire Controller - for dew control
- Orion StarShoot 5MP Planetary Camera - for planetary imaging and stacking
- SBIG STF-8300M with FW-8 Filter Wheel and ST-i Camera - For DSO imaging and guiding
- Sky Quality Meter (SQM-LE) - for monitoring and logging dark sky quality at the observatory
- Mac Mini (yes, it can all be done with a Mac) - telescope control, imaging, processing, weather station monitoring
Software:
- TheSkyX Pro - planetarium software and planning. I also have the Camera Add-On, but have not used it yet
- AstroPlanner - session and imaging planning among a million other things this wonderful software does
- Nebulosity / PHD - DSO imaging and guiding, stacking, and pre-processing of images
- EzPlanCap - planetary imaging capture for Orion StarShoot 5MP
- RegiStax - planetary imaging stacking and pre-processing
- Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) - DSO stacking and pre-processing, although I prefer Nebulosity for this
- VirtualBox / Windows 7 - for those few things like RegiStax where there is no Mac native version
