Equipment

II'll tell you that quick answers can get you burned really bad when it comes to this hobby. Research your decisions well before spending your money. Find people who have what you are wanting to buy and seek their feedback. Try it yourself, if at all possible, before you buy.

Disclaimer:

I am not associated with any commercial vendor of telescope equipment, and the content of this web site is strictly based on my opinions and very limited experience. This site should only be a small part of what you base your overall decision on.

Mission:

It's important for you to know what our intent was for the equipment we are purchasing, so that you can keep it in the proper perspective.

Our mission was to buy the right equipment without spending excessive money and to be able to have a setup that would meet the following objectives:

A. Meet the requirements of both a home-based and mobile observatory.

B. Image clusters, nebulae, galaxies and other deep sky objects with  excellent image quality.

C. Be able to sit in my house or tent, away from the elements and bugs, and perform my observations.

D. Be able to chase asteroids and spot supernovae and comets.

E. Stay under $5000.00

While we haven't received all of our equipment, we believe we have assembled a package that meets 4 out of the 5 objectives, with point E resulting in significant failure.

What we learned before submitting the purchase:

At first we thought the task would be fairly easy. We selected a Meade LX50 10" telescope and a Meade Pictor 416XT Series CCD camera. However...

The scope:

We quickly learned that because there was nothing in the world that could turn an LX50 into a GOTO capable scope--thus failing objective C--that we would need an LX200 series scope.  Because 8" just didn't seem like a good idea, we decided to spend the extra money on the 10".

The LX200 is a fantastic instrument and has full GOTO capability, and can be operated through up to 100 feet of serial cable, thus allowing me to reach the computer room on third floor in my house.

Along with the scope, you quickly learn that you'll need a super wedge and dew zapper if you want to do things right.

Cost?

$3,399.00 for the base LX200

$375.00 for Super Wedge

About $130.00 for a Dew Zapper kit.

As you can see, after this decision was made, our  $5,000 or less objective was shot! The upshot of this is that we learned before hand to buy the right equipment and we won't have the disappointment of wasted money on  the wrong stuff.

The camera:

This was biggest source of controversy in our purchase decision. Basically everyone that we did and didn't know told us that buying the Pictor camera would be a huge mistake.  However, since none of these people actually owned one, we set out to discover the facts and did some research.

We talked to some dealers, visited several newsgroups on the web, contacted Meade, and came to the conclusion that using the Pictor camera with the Meade software and other third party software known to work with them   would NOT make us happy.

The final nails in the coffin for the Pictor were its autoguider's limiting magnitude of 12.0 (we looked in a star chart program and saw there were lots of fields that didn't even have 12th magnitude stars to guide on), and  the inability to control the autoguider with software. The 201xt hooks to the scope and automatically guides it, if there is a 12th magnitude star in the autoguider view. We could have spent another $500.00 and buy the 208xt to get a 14th magnitude capability, but by the time we added a new autoguider and bought Maxim DL software to compensate for the shortcomings of the Pictor we could easily afford a nicer SBIG camera.

Our research also uncovered the need for the folowing accessories:

• JMI Autofocuser
• Adapter for Autofocuser

The autofocuser is used to help keep objective C alive by not having to visit the scope to re-focus all the time.  Be careful when considering autofocusers: the wrong one can result in frustration rather than help, as it  may put you in a loop of focusing and centering the image, each being at odds with each other.

So here is how it all adds up:

• $3,399 LX200 10" telescope
• $2,750 SBIG ST7e (Comes with built-in autoguider etc....)
• $  375 Super Wedge
• $  125 Dew Zapper
• $  269 JMI Auotfocuser
• $    49 Adapter

     +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

       $6,962 Sub Total

Gina wanted also a color filter system, which, depending upon what you do, it may not be necessary. It cost about $900.

We are buying it through a local dealer, who has been kind enough to give me a small club discount.  With tax and all it comes out to about $7,000.00.   I personally feel that working with a local dealer whenever it is economically feasable is important.  If you don't have experience with this type of equipment, your local dealer will literally become a life saver. Our dealer was actually cheaper than mail order.

You may also have to consider the legal fees which may accompany the purchase when your spouse divorces you or tries to have you committed! ;-)

For those of you who do not already have computers, we feel for you, as that will only make the cost go up.

You will also need to consider materials.  We will end up making our own serial cables, and a breaker box to keep a permanent serial connection accessible to our backyard.

We also found several other things which we will need to purchase in the future:

• 3.3 Focal Reducer
• 6.3 Focal Reducer
• Possibly a peer

All this could add up to another $1,100.00 pretty quick.

Final thoughts:

Be careful how you rationalize purchasing this equipment.  To help put it into mathematical perspective try looking at it from the point of view that when it's all said and done we'll have sunk about $8,000.00 into it  all. Ask yourself if it's worth it. Figure it being like a 4-year investment.  Don't fall into the "it will last me a lifetime" trap, because it won't... You'll want something new after 3 to 4 years.

Looking at it from this point means that you will be spending over $150.00 a month to have access to this type of equipment.  Most people would consider this amount of money for a hobby simply unwarranted.

Again, ask yourself if it's what you really want.  My wife and I decided that we did. Since astronomy came along we have shut off our TV satellite--we hardly ever watch TV anymore--and reduced some of our other hobbies  that were less meaningful. We didn't do this because of cost, but rather based on  interest factor: astronomy and CCDs are purely fascinating.

It's almost unimaginable when you're zeroing in on an asteroid in "The Sky" software and you hit the zoom button 10 times and portion off a tight field of stars, just to find that, when you take the CCD image, it has even  more stars than shown by the software.

It's simply amazing what you can do!

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