Equipment

Telescopes
Meade LXD650 Mount. This is a mid 1990's heavy duty mount that I purchased on Astromart a number of years ago that was not working when I purchased it. The mount needed a new RA motor and a number of capacitors replaced on it. The repairs were made by Astonomy-Shoppe. I also made the adapter that clamps onto the dovetail plate of my eight inch meade SCT.	Larger Image
Coronado 60mm hydrogen-alpha solar telescope with double stacked Etalon. I purchased this scope from Oceanside Photo and Telescope. In this photo the solar telescope is riding on the back of my eight inch Meade SCT.	Larger Image
Vintage Celestron C-10 SCT from 1969 I purchased this scope on AstroMart in 2011. The telescope is in need of a lot of restoration. The corrector has a crack in it that goes from the secondary out to the outer edge. I have an original C-10 replacement corrector that I will need to swap out with the cracked corrector, but that will require having the secondary mirror refigured so that the optical elements match up. The dust cover had a hole cut in it for a solar filter. The hole has had a sheet of metal glued over it by a previous owner. The leveling bolts on the pier are seized into place.	Larger Image
Meade LX200 12" SCT I purchased this scope on AstroMart in November 2008. I needed that six foot step ladder to reach the secondary collimation screws. This picture was taken on the first night that I had the scope outside. It certainly is a big beast.	Larger Image
Meade LXD55 8" SCT Purchased this scope in November 2002. Martin Peston published A Users Guide to the Meade LXD55 and LXD75 Telescopes in 2007, which featured four planetary images taken with this telescope.	Larger Image
Criterion Dynamax 8" SCT Purchased this vintage 1970's scope in early 2005 but dropped it and broke the corrector shortly after I received it. I just replaced the corrector this weekend (Sept 3, 2009) and the scope is back in service.	Larger Image
Criterion Golden Pyramid Tripod and Dynamax 8" SCT This is one of the Golden Pyramid Tripods that Criterion sold as an optional accessory for the Dynamax 8. I find that my homemade tripod is just as stable. Another thing that I noticed is that the earliest Dynamax scopes do not fit on this tripod. The base of my early Dynamax is too wide to fit.	Larger Image
Criterion Dynamax 8" SCT Purchased this vintage 1970's scope in December 2005. I have been using this scope, coupled with a Watec 120N integrating video camera, for public observing events.	Larger Image
8" f/4 Newtonian. OTA assembled from parts in 1978 and mount built from scratch betweeen 1975 and 1976.	Larger Image
6" f/8 Newtonian OTA and mount assembled from parts purchased through University Optics and Pacific Instruments in 1975.	Larger Image
Bausch & Lomb 80mm f/10 Maksutov-Cassegrain Another eBay find. This will be used as a guide scope for my Meade SCT once it is on a new mount.	Larger Image

Accessories
Meade 647 Flip Mirror. This is a must have for photography.	Larger Image
Van Slyke 2 Inch Focuser.	Larger Image
JMI NGFS Electric 2 Inch Focuser.	Larger Image
Lumicon Cassegrain Easy Guider. Has a built in focal reducer.	Larger Image
University Optics Camera Adaptor.	Larger Image
Orion Eyepiece Projection Variable Extension Tube.	Larger Image
9mm Adjustable Illuminated Crosshair.	Larger Image
3 Volt Batery Pack for Illuminated Crosshairs. This is a home made battery pack that supplies 3 volts, using rechargeable D cells, with a rheostat to control the crosshair illumination.	Larger Image
Antique Brass Eyepieces. A set of three brass eyepieces that I bought on eBay. The set includes a couple of unmounted long focus lenses and a nice prism.	Larger Image

CCD Cameras
Samsung SDC-435 integrating video camera (day/night security camera). This camera is a very nice low-cost alternative to the Minitron and Stellacam cameras. I purchased this camera new on eBay for only $130.	Larger Image
Watec 120N integrating video camera. This camera does a great job with deep sky objects using my LXD55 mount.	Larger Image
Meade Pictor 416XTE CCD Camera with a Pictor 201XT autoguider. I purchased this camera off from eBay.	Larger Image
Meade Pictor 416XT CCD Camera with a Pictor 201XT autoguider. I purchased this camera off from AstroMart.	Larger Image
Meade Pictor 416XT CCD Camera with Meade 616 Filter Wheel. I purchased this filter wheel off from AstroMart. The first time that I tried to attach the filter wheel to the 416XT one of the electrical connecting pins broke off. Fortunately, I was able to replace the pin with the aid of some of my watch maker's tools.	Larger Image
ImagingSource DBK 21AF04.AS CCD Camera. I purchased this camera in August 2007 after reading about the great capabilities of this camera and seeing many wonderful images taken with this line of camera. It is able to capture frames at a rate of 60 per second over a firewire interface. The camera needs at least 8 volts supplied by the firewire cable but my laptop can only provide 5 volts, so I modified a cable so that I could supply 12 volts by means of a 12 volt DC power supply.	Larger Image
Meade 616 Filter Wheel for the Pictor 216XT. I purchased this filter wheel off from AstroMart in 2011.	Larger Image
Meade Pictor 216XT CCD Camera I purchased this camera off from AstroMart in 2011.	Larger Image
Meade Pictor 208XT CCD Camera. I purchased this camera shortly after the Meade 8" SCT.	Larger Image
Finger Lakes Instruments CM7-2E CCD Camera. I recently purchased this fine camera on AstroMart. I am planning on using it with a spectrograph that I am planning to build.	Larger Image
Sac8 Peltier Cooled CCD camera. I picked this camera up off from AstroMart.	Larger Image
Sac7 Air Cooled CCD camera I picked this camera up off from eBay for a real bargain. This camera will be used with an objective prism spectrograph that I am currently putting the finishing touches on.	Larger Image
Web Cameras. Here are a couple of CCD Web cameras, a Philips ToUcam Pro and a Logitech QC 4000. The Web cameras are my work horses of planetary imaging.	Larger Image
Vesta Pro (PCVC675K) unmodified webcam.	Larger Image
Supercircuits CCD Camera. Here is a Supercircuits PC-23C low light level security camera. This camera has a sensitivity of 0.04 Lux. This is almost an order of magnitude better than the webcams.	Larger Image
Vesta Pro (PCVC675K) SC1 (long exposure) modified webcam. I purchased this camera off from Astromart.	Larger Image
Vesta Scan (PCVC690K) unmodified webcam. I purchased this camera off from Astromart.	Larger Image
Philips SPC 900NC unmodified webcam. I purchased this camera off from eBay.	Larger Image
Philips SPC 900NC long exposure modified webcam. I purchased this camera off from eBay. It has SC2 modification and I am using this camera to test the web camera capture program that I am writing.	Larger Image

Video Capture Devices
KWorld USB capture device. This device works well with the Samsung SDC-435 camera.	Larger Image
Imperx PCMCIA capture card. The software that comes with this card is able to capture at a number of frame rates from 1 fps to 67 fps, depending on the video size. I use this capture card with my Watec 120N camera. At 640x480 resolution with the Watec camera I can only capture at 1 and 2 fps with this capture card.	Larger Image

35 mm Cameras
Olympus OM1 with 500mm Tokina lens. I purchased this camera somewhere around 1978. For 35 mm astro photography you can't beat the OM1.	Larger Image	Olympus Varimagni finder.	Larger Image
Olympus 500mm f1:8 reflex lens. This is perhaps one of the finest 35mm catadioptric lens ever made. These lens are fairly hard to find. Olympus started making them in 1982 but they didn't make very many of them.
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Olympus astrophotography camera. I purchased this camera off eBay. It has a leaf shutter, built in eyepiece projection and framing/focusing eyepiece. Here is a copy in PDF format of the instruction sheet that came with the camera, which provides a chart of the focal lengths of the 0.965 inch eyepieces that came with the camera.Camera Instruction Sheet
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STI knife edge/ronchi focuser		Larger Image

Mini-Lathe and Mini-Mill. Every telescope maker needs a small lathe and mill to make those odd ball telescope parts.
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Drill Press and Wood Lathe. These are some of the tools that belonged to my grandfather. He purchased them in the late nineteen thirties. When WWII broke out the US government passed a law that allowed factory owners to confiscate machines from private indivduals as part of the war effort. Someone my grandfather knew threatened to confiscate all of his wood working tools under this new law, but my grandfather told him that he would give these machines away to people this guy would never find before he could get his hans on them, and that was the last he heard from that guy about his wood working tools.

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Table Saw and Disc Sander.
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Watch Maker's Lathes. These lathes can't be beat when it comes to small jobs.
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Horizontal Band Saw. This saw is a must have for anyone that has a lathe or mill. The saw also works as a vertical band saw for cutting small pieces of plate.
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Router Table. This is a very nice router table that I purchased from Grizzly Industries. The only thing that I didn't like about it was that Grizzly Industies didn't sell a miter gauge to fit the table so I made my own.
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Tool Grinder (purchased from Harbour Frieght) and Hand Tapper (purchased from Enco).
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