Ex-kit Much has come and gone over the past few years. Here's some stuff I once owned, and have got rid of to make way for new stuff. 8" Meade LX200GPS/UHTC Schmidt-Cassegrain on an APT wedge. This was my first imaging telescope. Fairly solid tracking, perfect GOTO, even with a load of imaging kit attached. The wedge is built like a tank. It was a great telescope that was up and running in minutes, but wasn't worth keeping once I got the G11. Had its quirks and frustrations, but Meade came up with a brilliant all-round telescope in the LX200GPS. One day I'd like to own another one of these telescopes, ideally one of the big 12" or 14" models on a permanent observatory mount. The big LX200s are too heavy to setup and tear down each night, but they'd make a great 'light bucket' for visual use and imaging the planets. 4" Meade ETX-105AT/UHTC Maksutov-Cassegrain. My first telescope. Great optics, good GOTO and up and running in minutes. Didn't really get used once I got the LX200, and the ZS66 has taken over as the 'ready in seconds' telescope. 80mm Skywatcher Pro f/7.5 Apochromatic refractor This is fantastic value for money and a brilliant widefield telescope. It also gives great views of the moon and planets with the 4.8mm Nagler eyepiece. The cheap focuser was replaced with the much better William Optics two-speed Crayford. Sold when the TMB80/480 arrived. 66mm William Optics ZS66 SD f/5.9 Apochromatic refractor This worked very well as a 'grab and go' visual telescope, although I got it to use for very widefield imaging. Well built, reasonably well colour-corrected and very good value, but imaging was something of a disappointment as the field is far from flat when used with the big sensor on a DSLR (it's fine with a CCD). My experiences with the telescope are here. I also had problems getting the focuser to take the weight of a DSLR, although that was fixed with a bit of experimentation. This one was also sold when I got the TMB80/480. Coronado Personal Solar Telescope I've had two of these now for H-alpha views of the sun. Suffers a little from a 'sweet spot' effect where you only get detail in part of the field of view, but great fun. I'd recommend one to anybody, they're great value for money. The only problem with the first PST was a mild case of 'PST disease', a discolouration of the coatings causing a patchy rust-colored appearance. This was only visible in bright sunlight and didn't seem to affect the performance one bit. The breakdown of the ITF coating was caused by third-party lens elements that were left too long before being assembled into the PST objective. This was not a safety issue, but new PSTs use another style of the ITF located further down in the optical tube. The second one was the newer rustproof model. 80mm William Optics Megrez TMB80/480 f/6 Apochromatic refractor This was purchased as a replacement for both my William Optics ZS66 SD and my SkyWatcher 80ED. It has very high quality LOMO 80mm f/6 'super apochromatic' lens in a William Optics Megrez tube, and it's a quite brilliant visual and widefield-imaging refractor. My experiences with the telescope are here. Replaced with the Takahashi FS-60C. Coronado SolarMax 40 "double stacked" <0.5 Angstrom Solar telescope An awesome Hydrogen-alpha performer, and probably the most H-alpha I'll be able to afford until someone invents the $99, 99mm, quarter-angstrom etalon. Sold because it was just too much money to have tied up given the use it got. Replaced with another PST (a rust-proof one, this time). Takahashi FS-60C f/5.9 refractor A 60mm, 355mm focal length f/5.9 fluorite apochromat. This was my widefield imaging telescope, and also served as a guidescope for the 130EDT and as a highly portable grab and go telescope for mobile use. A wonderful little telescope, with a horde of confusing accessories and a manual all in Japanese. Focus travel is very limited, which can be a problem sometimes. This was replaced with a TeleVue 60is, which is a very similar telescope but better suited to widefield imaging. Revelation 80ED f/6.8 refractor A 80mm, 650mm focal length, f/6.8 apochromatic refractor with many similarities to William Optics' ZenithStar 80ED (I assume they come from the same place in Taiwan). This was an excellent general purpose visual refractor. The FPL-51 doublet lens is not perfectly colour corrected, but false colour isn't visible in general use. The telescope is nicely put together - fit and finish is far better than my first 80mm apochromat from Skywatcher - and this one was tweaked and reflocked by Steve at Telescope House. Sold to raise some money for other things, but missed. Takahashi Mewlon-210 f/11.5 Dall-Kirkham reflector. A 2415mm focal length, f/11.5 Dall-Kirkham. This was my lunar/planetary telescope, and a great counterpart for the 130EDT. Time to cool down and good collimation are critical but is worth the effort. Upgraded with a Moonlight CS2-tm two-speed Crayford focuser to deal with the small but noticable image shift from the moving-mirror primary. Properly dialed-in this 'scope can match a much larger SCT for lunar/planetary viewing, but is light enough to be easily portable and stable on a cheap mount. Used with the SKYnyx 2-0M for lunar and planetary imaging, but eventually traded for a Coronado 60mm Hydrogen-alpha setup. Losmandy G11/Gemini L4 mount Solid if slightly quirky mount. Near perfect if you're not doing deep sky imaging and don't want to mount more than 60lbs of kit. Long exposure imaging has its challenges, although autoguiding helps a lot. I kept some notes on my experiences with it (these grew rather lengthy and include part one, part two, part three, part four and part five). Sold when I ordered an Astro-Physics 1200GTO.

Eyepieces Tele Vue 4.8mm Nagler, great quality but very little eye relief. Wasn't used much and sold to fund a 7mm Pentax XW that'll get more use. Tele Vue 13mm Plossl. Used for solar viewing with the PST, sold when that went. Very nice Plossl, easily the best i've used. Will probably be replaced with a 12mm CeMax at some point. Meade series 4000 plossls - 6.4mm, 9.7mm, 12.4mm, 15mm, 20mm, 26mm, 32mm and 40mm. Good eyepieces, but out of their depth with the Astro-Physics which demanded better quality eyepieces. 40mm should really have been a 2" eyepiece. Tele Vue 19mm Panoptic - another excellent Tele Vue eyepiece, but didn't quite fit into my collection. Tele Vue 24mm Panoptic - outstanding 68 degree eyepiece. The only thing it did wrong was not be a Nagler, sold to fund a 17mm type-4. Meade 40mm series 4000 Super Wide Angle (SWA) - good quality 67 degree eyepiece that came close to the 35mm Panoptic. Sold because it didn't do anything the 35mm Panoptic didn't do better. Meade 14mm series 4000 Ultra Wide Angle (UWA) - excellent 'old school' eyepiece. Huge, heavy, immersive and great optically, like looking out of a ship's porthole into space. A classic. Sold because it was too close in focal length to the 12mm type-4 Nagler, but I like the idea of getting another one day. Tele Vue 35mm Panoptic - another outstanding 68 degree eyepiece. Probably better optically than the 26mm type-5 Nagler, lost out only because it didn't have that massive, immersive Nagler view. 12mm CeMax - purchased to go with my 18mm CeMax, but too little eye relief for my tastes. Sold when I realized I would always use the 10mm Pentax XW instead of this. 18mm CeMax - nice eyepiece with better eye relief than the 12mm, but low powered for the SM40. Tele Vue 12mm Type-4 Nagler - another outstanding Nagler. I've had two of these, both were sold (one to raise funds, the other to make room for the 13mm Ethos). Burgess/TMB 4mm planetary - good quality 60 degree planetary eyepiece. Reasonable eye relief, and came respectably close to the 5mm Pentax XW. A complete bargain at under £50 on the used market. Tele Vue 17mm Type-4 Nagler - Another brilliant Nagler that went to raise some money for the observatory. Probably the best Nagler i've used. Replaced with another 17T4, which went when I got a 20T5... Tele Vue 11mm Plossl - Sharp, high quality Plossl, but too little eye relief for me. Burgess/TMB 9mm Planetary - Like the 4mm B/TMB it was comfortable, sharp and respectably close to the 10XW. Not close enough though. Tele Vue 26mm Type-5 Nagler - Awesome widefield eyepiece. Replaced by the even more awesome 31mm Type-5. Tele Vue 13mm Type-6 Nagler - Very highly regarded, but didn't quite work for me. Optically very good, but lacked the immersion of the 12mm Type-4 and eye relief was a bit short for my tastes. Not sure why, as I liked the 3.5mm and 5mm T6s a lot. Tele Vue 3.5mm Type-6 Nagler - Very sharp eyepiece but too much power for the local conditions. Tele Vue 5mm Type-6 Nagler - Another great, short focal-length Nagler. Awesome lunar views. Replaced with a 5mm Baader Hyperion to raise money for other things. 7mm Pentax XW - A brilliant eyepiece, sold to raise money for other things. Replaced with a 7mm B/TMB but that wasn't really close. Selling this was a mistake. Pentax XW 10mm. The last of my three Pentax XWs to go. A superb eyepiece, and another mistake to let it go. Burgess/TMB 7mm planetary - There wasn't much point in keeping both this and an 8mm Hyperion. Baader 3.5mm, 5mm, 8mm and 13mm Hyperions - Good value 68 degree eyepieces, but not quite a Nagler. The 13mm was replaced with another 12mm Type-4 Nagler, the others were all too short focal lengths for my Mewlon. Meade 12mm illuminated reticle eyepiece - These days I do all of my alignment by plate-solving in TheSky 6. Tele Vue 31mm Type-5 Nagler - The ultimate widefield eyepiece. Shouldn't have sold it, but not ideal with the Mewlon 210. Barlows and Focal Reducers Meade f/3.3 focal reducer - perfect match for the DSI, never needed it once that had gone. Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer. Used once, seemed ok, sold it with the LX200. Atik 0.5x focal reducer - I've had two. Never used either of them. Orion "Shorty-Plus" 2x Barlow. It was fine. I shouldn't have sold it. Coronado CeMax 2x Barlow - used to bring my webcam within the PST's limited focus travel. Not really needed with the SM40. I've had two and sold both. Tele Vue 5x Powermate - the high-magnification brother of the 2.5x powermate, but more power than I needed. Shame there's no 1.25", 4x powermate. Astro-Physics 0.67x CCD Telecompressor - I got this to use with the AP130 for deep sky imaging, but never used it. Replaced with a AP 27TVPH 2.7" reducer. Tele Vue TRF-2008 0.8x Focal Reducer/Field Flattener. Required to tame the field curvature of the TMB80/480 triplet. Not needed when that was sold and traded for a 3.5mm Nagler type-6. Astro-Physics 0.75x Photographic-Visual Telecompressor. Excellent 2.7"-format reducer, but I needed a flattener for the ST-4000XCM and couldn't use the two together. Diagonals William Optics 2" enhanced diagonal. Great quality, good value diagonal. Sold when I got an Astro-Physics MaxBright but highly recommended. William Optics 1.25" dielectric diagonal. Wasn't used much and was sold. As usual for William Optics it's good quality and good value. I've had two of these. And sold both. Lunar/Planetary Imaging kit Meade Lunar/Planetary Imager (LPI) - had two, sold two, wish I had kept one. Celestron NexImage, a re-badged Philips ToUCam Pro II CCD webcam - very good, but died after a couple of months use. Celestron's "support" was rubbish. Orion StarShoot Solar System Color Imaging Camera - I was rather unimpressed with this, and never got it working well. I don't miss it. Philips SPC900NC webcam. I never really got on with this, although it has a better reputation than the ToUCam II it replaced. Maybe I should have tried harder. Deep Sky Imaging kit Meade Deep Space Imager (DSI). Underrated, I think, although I never got the best out of it. Starlight-Xpress modified HX516 CCD camera - the ICX084AL was replaced with the ICX424AL SuperHAD CCD. This was my introduction to 'real' CCD imaging. Small field of view but impressively low noise (especially compared to the DSI). Used briefly as SXV-H9C guider, went to pay for a dedicated SXV guider. Starlight-Xpress SXV-H9C single-shot colour, high resolution (1392x1040) CCD with 1.4 million 6.45μm pixels. Great CCD, with high sensitivity and very low noise, but I've moved to a monochrome CCD with filters. Starlight-Xpress SXV guide camera. Sold with the SXV-H9C. Atik ATK-16IC. Cooled 659x490 monochrome CCD with 7.4 micron pixels. Great performer with low noise and reasonable sensitivity at a low price. Used as a guider, sold to part-fund a Atik 16HR. Meade DSI Pro. Uncooled 510 x 492 monochrome CCD with 9.6μm x 7.5μm pixels. I got this to use as an autoguider, sold when I no longer needed it. Atik 16HR: 1392x1040 monochrome CCD with 1.4 million 6.45μm pixels. High sensitivity, low noise and good value for money. Sold to fund the ST-4000XCM. QHY5 CMOS autoguider. 1280 x 1024 5.2μm pixels. Reasonably sensitive, and did its job very well. Other stuff Orion Ultrablock Narrowband light pollution filter, not needed in Bosham. Turned everything green. Orion SkyGlow Wideband light pollution filter. Not sure if I ever used it. 2" Baader 45nm H-alpha filter. Pretty good, cheap, sold to fund Baader's much more expensive 7nm bandwidth filter which is a better match to my CCD. 2" Baader UV/IR filter. Worked perfectly, not required once the IDAS arrived. Baader 1.25" UV/IR filter. Worked perfectly, but replaced by an Astronomik one. STI Stiletto focuser for the Canon 300D. Effective tool for getting sharp focus, sold when I realized I wasn't going back to prime focus DSLR work. 2" Baader 7nm H-alpha filter. I got this and then sold it without ever using it to raise some money for the SKYnyx. Hutech 2" IDAS Light Pollution Suppression (LPS) filter. Sold when I sold the SXV-H9C. Astronomik 13nm H-alpha narrowband filter. I upgraded to the 6nm version. ImagesPlus v2.75 - very good at aligning and combining DSLR images. Does loads of other stuff that I never really mastered. Wasn't really used once I moved to CCD, as Astro Art does many of the same things. Baader Neodymium lunar/planetary filter. Inexpensive, but rather limited in its usefulness. Astro-Engineering observer's filter wheel. Came with the Atik 16HR but not really needed. Basic but functional. Meade UV/IR, RGB filter set. Sold with the DSI Pro. Gemini Control Center - used to control the G11 in my observatory. Not needed once the G11 was sold. Astronomik UV/IR, RGB filter set. Not needed once the 16HR was sold Astronomik Sulphur-II narrowband filter, wasn't being used. Astronomik Oxygen-III narrowband filter, ditto. Never really got into tri-colour narrowband. True Technology `superslim' manual filter wheel. Replaced with the motorized version.