APT stands for “AstroPhotography Tool” and it is like Swiss army knife for your astro imaging sessions. No matter what you are imaging with – Canon EOS, Nikon, CCD or CMOS astro camera – the APT AstroPhotography Tool has the right tool for planning, collimating, aligning, focusing, framing, controlling/tethering, imaging, […]
When thinking about the GSO Eight Cassegrain telescope, its worthwhile to look back to Laurent Cassegrain who was a 17th century French Roman Catholic priest and is given credit for inventing the telescope design that carries his name. Cassegrain telescopes use a parabolic primary mirror with a hyperbolic secondary mirror. […]
Luca Arteskya, an Italian telescope manufacturer and retailer, offers a secondary mirror support retrofit kit upgrade for Sky-Watcher 200 Newtonian telescopes. The kit is compatible with both F/5 (200/1000) and F/4 (200/800) systems. The secondary support is manufactured in house by Luca Arteskya out of aluminum 6061 which is CNC […]
Reasons to use the Hubble Artificial Star for Collimation? You can do it during the day. You can’t do it at high noon, but early morning and twilight hours are fine, twilight is best. You don’t have to worry about keeping a moving star in the field of view. I […]
I have been involved with astronomy for a number of years and building my own artificial star came naturally. As in so many hobbies, there are countless gadgets and doodads that can make your astronomy setup, alignment, and viewing much more enjoyable. Unfortunately for most of us, without the benefit […]
Catseye Infinity XLKP Autocollimator Collimation Tool: Newtonian astrograph telescope users can now confidently take autocollimator focuser-axis alignment to the next level of precision without the need of a focuser drawtube extension. By design, Newtonian astrographs incorporate a “back-focus” position of the primary mirror’s native focal plane to facilitate image focus […]
Celestron CGEM II Mount: The Celestron CGEM, CGEM II and CGEM DX mounts are a midsized class of German Equatorial Mounts (GEM) generically called EQ6 mounts. They are similar to the Orion Atlas mount and the Sky-Watcher EQ6. These mounts are higher capacity mounts than the Celestron Advanced VX but […]
Farpoint Astro has redesigned its 2-inch Cheshire Autocollimator with the goal of producing the finest Autocollimator available. The all-new model is precision crafted from sturdy machined, anodized aluminum and includes a rubber dust cap. Successful use of this device requires that the reflector telescope to be adjusted has been previously […]
Sometimes it’s just easier to show someone how to do something than it is to tell them, and telescope collimation is a perfect example. Indeed, most astronomy enthusiasts are primarily visual learners for whom showing will always be more effective than telling. If you’re like us, you’ve often found yourself […]
By Tom Osypowski Tom Osypowski is the owner of Equatorial Platforms and the night sky has been his steady companion for over five decades, ever since, at the age of 12, the urge came to look up at the stars from his boyhood home in Milwaukee. Tom’s journey with building […]
Deep-Astro Instruments had a couple of seemingly mundane goals in mind when designing its new line of Dobs: They had to be easy to transport and to set up, plus they needed to be accurate and robust. The resulting telescopes, though, are, as you shall see, far from mundane. Indeed, […]