My Rigs on Sleepy Telescope

Wide-field deep-sky rig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The wide-field rig is built around the Takahashi FSQ85-EDX on the NEQ6 Pro.

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-85EDX, 85 mm, 450 mm at f/5.3
- with the Takahashi 1.01× flattener: about 455 mm
- with the Takahashi QB 0.73× reducer: about 330 mm at f/3.9
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro, cooled monochrome APS-C
Filters: ZWO EFW 7 × 36 mm filter wheel with Antlia LRGB-V Pro and Antlia 3 nm Pro SHO
Guiding: ZWO off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Power and USB: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance Gen2
Mount: NEQ6 Pro with the Rowan belt modification

With the ASI2600MM Pro the field is about 2.96° × 1.98° at 1.70″ per pixel with the flattener, and about 4.08° × 2.73° at 2.35″ per pixel with the reducer.

Narrow-field deep-sky rig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The narrow-field rig puts the same imaging train as the wide-field rig on the Meade 8" ACF.

Telescope: Meade 8" ACF, 203 mm, about 2000 mm at f/10
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro, cooled monochrome APS-C
Filters: ZWO EFW 7 × 36 mm filter wheel with Antlia LRGB-V Pro and Antlia 3 nm Pro SHO
Guiding: ZWO off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Power and USB: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance Gen2
Mount: NEQ6 Pro with the Rowan belt modification

With the ASI2600MM Pro the field is about 0.67° × 0.45° at 0.39″ per pixel.

Planetary rig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

For the planets the Meade 8" ACF works at long focal length with a fast planetary camera.

Telescope: Meade 8" ACF, 203 mm, with the TeleVue 2× Barlow: about 4000 mm at f/20
Camera: ASI174MM, monochrome with a global shutter
Colour camera: ASI224MC, colour with a rolling shutter (Sony IMX224), for one-shot colour imaging
Filters: ZWO EFW Mini 5 × 1.25" filter wheel with Optolong LRGB filters and an IR-pass filter
Atmospheric dispersion corrector: ZWO 1.25" ADC, two adjustable prisms that cancel the colour fringing the atmosphere adds to planets low on the horizon
Mount: NEQ6 Pro with the Rowan belt modification

Solar rig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Sun is imaged with the Bresser 127L refractor and the ASI174MM, in two ways.

Telescope: Bresser Messier AR-127L, 127 mm, 1200 mm at f/9.4
White light: through a Tecnosky Herschel wedge
H-alpha: a Daystar Quark Chromosphere double-stacked with the etalon of the Lunt LS35THa
Camera: ASI174MM, monochrome with a global shutter
Mount: NEQ6 Pro with the Rowan belt modification

Swan Reach remote rig

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The remote rig works under a roll-off roof at Swan Reach Imaging, in South Australia, under a Bortle 1 sky. I share it with Paride Gabini, Rino Morra, Federico Palaia and Alessio Carmine Scipione: it is operated with NINA, and the frames are collected jointly. Its images are in the Australia section.

Telescope: RCOS 16", 16-inch Ritchey-Chrétien, 3660 mm (measured)
Rotator: PrimaLuceLab
Focuser: PrimaLuceLab, moves the secondary mirror
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro, cooled monochrome APS-C, belonging to the rig
Filters: ZWO EFW 7 × 2" filter wheel with Astrodon LRGBSHO 2" filters: E-series Gen 2 LRGB and 3 nm Ha, OIII and SII
Guiding: off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI174MM Mini
Power and USB: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance Gen2
Mount: Paramount ME
Thermal control: dew heaters and fans on the primary mirror

With the ASI2600MM Pro the field is about 0.37° × 0.25° (22′ × 15′) at 0.21″ per pixel, or 0.42″ per pixel binned 2 × 2.