astro-sharp equipment

Here is my biggest telescope, a Meade 10" Schmidt-Newtonian Relector on a Losmandy G-11 mount.
Click here for Meade's website page with the spec.
It is a fast F4 "light-bucket" and gives impressive deep-sky views as well as crisp planetary images.
The LXD55 comes with a very poor mount. I now realise that when you buy a telescope, you need to think about the mount first! - especially if you want to do astro-imaging. The Losmandy G-11 is a superbly engineered piece of equipment. I am delighted with its performance and the Meade is great with it.

Here is my full setup including an ST-80 f5 guide scope with an SBIG ST-4 autoguider which I have just purchased second-hand. The ST-80 is on loan (ta Pete!).

The ST-4 is regarded as a 'classic' piece of equipment and is still used to guide some of the worlds biggest telescopes. It uses relays to control the switches on the telescope drive, and so is compatible with a lot of different equipment. The ST-4 is no longer made (The more expensive STV has taken over).

On the table is my laptop, eyepiece box and ST-4 control box. I have MaximDL software on the laptop that can interface with the ST-4 - that give me more control over the ST-4. The laptop also gets used for capturing webcam images and focussing my Canon 300D with software called DSLRFocus (highly recommended).

The view looking North from the garden into the meadow.

Looking South towards the house. As you can see, we have no street lights for miles and almost perfect horizons in all directions. (Old LXD55 mount shown here - now sold)