As of Summer, 2015, our home dark-sky observatory has been retired.
Since then we have had the pleasure of using several telescopes
made by PlaneWave Instruments at Sierra Remote Observatories in California.
Beginning in June 2022 we have begun a new partnership with Eric Coles, imaging with
his PlaneWave CDK20.
The current set of equipment includes the following:
Planewave CDK20 20" f/7.7 Cassegrain
Planewave L-500 Mount
QHYCCD QHY600M CMOS Camera
Chroma LRGB, H-alpha and OIII Filters
Over the years we've also used...
Planewave CDK17 17" f/6.8 Cassegrain
Planewave Ascension 200HR Mount
Apogee Alta U16M CCD Camera
Astrodon LRGB, H-alpha and OIII Filters
Astrodon Monster MOAG Off-axis Guider
Officina Stellare
(formerly A&M)
14" f/8 Ritchey Chretien Cassegrain
Astro-Physics
1200GTO German Equatorial Mount
Clement Bellerophon Focuser
Planewave CDK17 17" f/6.8 Cassegrain
Ceravolo Optical Systems Astrograph
ASA N8 8" f/3.8 Astrograph
SBIG STL11000M CCD Camera
Yankee Robotics Trifid-2 6303E CCD Camera
SBIG ST-402ME Guiding Camera
Astrodon ROAG Off-axis Guider
Finger Lakes Instruments CFW-7 Filter Wheel
Finger Lakes Instruments DF-2 Focuser
SBIG ST-10XE CCD Camera
SBIG ST-4 Autoguider
Parallax Instruments 12.5" f/9 Ritchey Chretien Cassegrain
Celestron C-11 Schmidt Cassegrain
William Optics 4" f/8 Apochromatic Refractor
Stellarvue SV152 6" f/8 Apochromatic Refractor
Stellarvue SV4 4" f/6.4 Apochromatic Refractor
Stellarvue SV102T 4" f/8 Apochromatic Refractor
8" f/4.5 Newtonian
Stellarvue Nighthawk 80mm Guidescope
Below are photographs of some of our equipment setups...
Here is the Officina Stellare 14" f/8 Ritchey Chretien
Here is the ASA N8 Astrograph.
This is me with the system we began using for astrophotography in 1994: a Celestron C-11, an Astro-Physics 1200 German Equatorial Mount, and a home-made aluminum tripod. One thing I've learned is that the mount needs to be "overkill" compared to the telescope. This photo demonstrates what I mean!
Photo by Tony Hallas
Here is the Parallax RC and A-P 1200GTO, taken from the Mt. Pinos parking lot.
Photo by Grant Hiestand
Here's the 8" f/4.5 Newtonian at the Hallas Observatory Annex, in Foresthill, California. To the left is Tony's 14.5" f/8 Classical Cassegrain (pre-RCOS upgrade) in his roll-off roof observatory.
Photo by Bill Williams