The Equipment

4/2/10: Haha, I had to include this picture. There's been a lot of talk about "Man Caves" lately. This is my office, which typically doesn't look like this. My big scopes typically hang out in the guest room off the patio. Grandma and Grandpa are staying there now, so I had to move the scopes into my office. I sit in the middle of three scopes. A very nice Feng Shui triangle.

Note: the XT12i was sold and replaced with its GoTo twin the XT12g.

Scopes

Nexstar 11 GPS

Good scope here. This is my third big scope. 11" Go To with really fast set up (compared to Equatorial Mounts).

Alt-Az mounts, which have limitations in astrophotography are a cinch to set up, which makes a big difference in how much you'll use it.

I have a hard time thinking about a scenario where I'd sell this. It's about as portable as a big scope can get. Any bigger driven scope wouldn't be very portable.

If I ever got a big (non-driven) reflector, I'd hang onto this one as a photography platform...

The Celestron HD-102AZ f5 shown here piggybacked on the N11 can be mounted on it's own manual tripod.

Note: figured out the one scenario where I'd sell this: to finance a bigger Solar Telescope.

4/4/10: The new addition: an Orion XT12i. The Nexstar 11 above sets up faster than an equatorial mount, but it takes a long time to cool down and a really long time to pack up and transport. Once you throw a piggyback scope, a dew shield, dew heaters, dew heater controllers, a 12v battery pack, extension cords, counterweights for the piggyback, wheels on the tripod to move what was once luggable... It adds up.

The 12" dobsonian gets to the car in two trips (plus a third trip for the chair). Breakdown/setup consists of de-mating/mating the tube. The computer, when needed, runs on a 9-volt battery which fits inside the handset. It cools down very fast.

It outperfoms the Nexstar in side-by-side comparisons (high-powered lunar stuff is nicer with the Nexstar's tracking system, though. Other than that hand power is fine).

The scope you use the most is your best scope. Big glass for the money, really good value, and it weans you from the computer).

Very happy with it.

Note: it's gone, replaced with its GOTO sister, the XT12g.

Nexstar 5 SE

Coronado Personal Telescope

Cool. 8/17/09 bought a used Celestron Nexstar 5SE. Smaller than the Nexstar 8i I had a while back, but the mount and OTA are connected via a standard dovetail. This means that the computerized mount can hold and point any variety of scopes. Here, it's holding my Personal Solar Telescope.

I bought the N5SE as the mythical "Grab and Go" scope. Easy to take camping and hiking and on planes, etc.

8/24/09: took it out, way out of collimation. Installed Bob's knobs and collimated. Jupiter looked much better.

8/27/09: Set it up side-by-side with the N11. Dimmer on the Hercules Cluster, slightly less detail on Jupiter. Moon was really close to the 11" in detail. Perhaps even even. The overall stability and using a 2" eyepiece on the 11 made the experience better (of course, the 11 cost almost 10 times as much). But it was interesting going back and forth, being impressed each time.

1/10/10: sold it to pay for Legoland passes before Dash outgrows the park.

I have this Meade ETX-70 sitting in the garage, waiting for Dash to be old enough to abuse it only moderately (at 4, his abuse would be a little too much). He'd also need to learn to read first (menu-driven).

It's a little small for anything other than very specific applications: star clusters, moon, maybe some large bright deep sky objects from very dark sites. The plus is it's a great learner computerized scope. It will show you more that you can find by eye, especially if you know almost nothing about the sky.

Miscellaneous Equipment

Celestron SkyScout - an electronic Sky Map. It will tell you what you're pointing at and point you to an object you pick from its database. I'm excited about this. I've used it to push my N11 around with its power off. I think it'll help me learn the sky much better.
Televue Everbrite 2" Diagonal
Stellarvue Binoviewers (good for a while, but I can't get them collimated anymore (next project, maybe?))

Favorite Eyepieces

Nagler 11mm T6
Celestron Axiom 19mm 2"
Meade Series 4000 SWA 40mm 2"
Burgess/TMB Planetaries: 5mm and 8mm

Atlas:

1/14/10: Picked up, from the Bargain Rack, The New Atlas of the Stars, by Mellinger and Hoffman. It's 30 photos of the sky, each with an overlay sheet with the annotation and a page of text and a handful of photos/insets. Interesting because you get what the sky itself looks like with the option of using the "cheat sheet". I found it very useful in a dark sky (Mammoth Lakes, CA).

For my old stuff/equipment history click here (you do have a little too much time on your hands, don't you?)