ETX-105 Astrophotography
Image Gallery Index
Some of the equipment I've used for these photographs.
email Question or Comment

*
Meade ETX-105 Maksutov-Cassegrain astro telescope
with Meade #884 tripod and Meade #497 Autostar controller. D=105mm; F=1470mm; f/14

*
Meade #140 Apochromatic Barlow
With the camera this gives about 3670mm effective focal length or f/35. A superb lens.

*
Scopetronix STVB Visual Back for ETX
To attach camera or Barlow + camera to the ETX rear port

*
Scopetronix STFD Field Doubler for ETX
With the camera this gives about 730mm effective focal length or f/7. This lens has fairly bad comatic aberration. I prefer the Mogg focal reducer lens.

*
Scopetronix STDC105 DewClip for ETX
Dew preventer heats the corrector lens to eliminate dew formation. Works great. Necessary for deep sky photography. Runs off 12V cigarette lighter socket.

*
Steve Mogg F-0.6FR focal reducer lens
Threads onto 1.25" filter threads on the nosepiece of a camera adapter. This lens produces a nice sharp image across the whole sensor. With an extender to increase the distance between the lens and the sensor I get 0.55X reduction.

*
Sirius Optics NIR1 near infrared blocking filter, 1.25 inch diameter
Increases the sharpness of moon and planet images and preserves natural color when used with silicon chip image sensors. 1.25" IR block filters are hard to find. I got this one from Adorama.

*
Scopetronix STSF105 Class "A" Solar Filter
The Sun appears yellowish white through this very nice filter

*
Registax image "stacking" and processing software
I haven't tried other stacking software, been completely satisfied with this one

*
GIMP image processing software
A good, free, photo processing application. I do the final processing with GIMP including color balance and enhancement, gamma correction, gaussian blur, unsharp mask, etc.

*
Compaq X1000 Notebook Computer
Nice machine. Batteries last for four hours of imaging.


Index | Question or Comment