Telescopes
The main telescope at my NJ home observatory (see NJ Observatory gallery) is a 12.5" (0.3m) diameter mirror modified Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain design. The telescope sits on a Paramount-MX equatorial mount, on a permanent pier in my observatory. The scope is the iDK made by AG Optical, with f/6.7, FL 2130mm. The mirror is made of quartz with very low thermal expansion properties, and the tube is a thick carbon-fiber (...)
Software used to process the images
CCD Stackv2 Maxim DLv6 PhotoshopCS5 TopazDeNoise
ASTAP Autostakkertv3 Registaxv6
Cameras, CCD and CMOS sensors
CMOS sensor-based astro cameras have recently come to the fore and have really changed the game in amateur as well as professional astronomy.
The cameras used in the images from New Jersey on this site are the ZWO ASI2400MC, ASI071MC and the ASI2600MM. The most recent setup since late 2023 is the ASI2400MC camera, which has a full frame sensor: the Sony IMX410 sensor, 24MP, 5.94um pixels, AND 100ke- well depth. With the AGO 12.5 scope this gives a field of (...)