Page 3 - Astronomy Book 1

Many years later - Astronomy Gets Serious

The picture on the left is my firstt serious telescope setup. A Celestron C8 SCT with an
equatorial mount. Although I did use it outside, It was more often used from an
installation in the loft and faced out (directly south) through a Velux window. This
setup had many restrictions on what could be viewed when. For best viewing
particularly of planets I had to let the loft equilibrate with the outside temperature
before viewing. It did however have three key advantages . One, it was a permanent
setup that could be used relatively quickly with no time lost transporting, setting up

and aligning. Two, it enabled direct connection to a PC for telescope guiding and
camera connection and three, it’s always dry!

On the right you can see the next step forward
for my equipment. The telescope was a

Meade 12 inch SCT in a fork mount. It was
installed in the loft in the same area as my
previous equipment. It still had the same
restrictions on what could be viewed when
but I modified the area to reduce the time
taken to equilibrate with the outside
temperature by enclosing the telescope area

in a small room within the loft. T his
significantly reduced air currents and for all
but the most critical planetry viewing I found I
could start an observing session straight away.
Also with this telescope I had my first attempts
at Astrophotography using a webcam

attached to the telescope - T hee pictures
obtained were poor but enough to encourage
me.

Although both setups gave me many
hundreds of hours of pleasure the restricted
view was a big issue so the decision was made

to go outside which resulted in the Green Top
Observatory
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