Celestron 80mm (3.1") F11 firstscope refractor

This is the smallest telescope i currently own. It is seen on the above picture piggy backed to my old LX50 telescope which I no longer own. Telescope is long black scope on top of LX50. Currently this telescope uses the same tripod as my 5" MCT and i use it mainly for lunar and deepsky astrophotography. This telescope provides stunning wideangle views of deepsky and lunar images. Coupled with the accurate mounting of my 5" telescope, this can be used for longer exposure photography and thus I tend to use it often on the bright deepsky objects. This telescope has been with me for over 8 years while other telescopes I have owned and sold!

Orion 5" Starmax 127 F12 Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope

Orion Starmax 127 5" f12 Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope (MCT) - This is my latest telescope of quite a few that I have owned over the last 10 years! So far the main use for this telescope has been for digital deepsky and planetary photography. I am just amazed that even thought its meant to be used as a planetary scope due to its large focal lenght, it performs great for deepsky!!! The camera attached to the telescope is my canon G3 4MP digital camera which is attached by a scopetronix digi-t-adaptor and a scopetronix 25mm plossal eyepiece. This camera is the one i use most for astrophotography. Other cameras I have used in the past are a pantex K2 SLR film camera, a connectix color quickcam VC, a connectix black and white webcam and a canon g2 (which i don't own anymore). What will be after the G3? my next step up will deffenitly have to be a DSLR but with my very shollaw pockets that will have to wait :-)

Meade 10" LX200 F10 Goto Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope

Meade 10" F10 LX200 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) - This is the king of all my scopes, its large size and goto capabilities allow me to use this telescope for faint deepsky viewing and awsome planetary views. I use this scope mainly for planetary astrophotography althought I have tried some very limitid deepsky shots. I can't realy use this one for song exposures as it has an alt-az mountin and I get what is called rotation. I would need to get a wedge and a polar finder scope all of which is very expensive. This first image shows my LX200 SCT and mounted on top is both my 8x50 finder scope and my meade 2045 4" F10 SCT which I sold a couple months ago.





The last two pictures show the telescope setup. The controller that is seen hangning from the telescope is the goto and slew controls. The telescope has a computer that has a database of 64,000 objects (if i am not mistaken) and all i have to do is bring up the object i want to see on its computer by the hand controller and say goto and the telescope will automaticaly go to that object!