In my observatory I have an MI250 mount permanently mounted. The MI250 is a GOTO computerized mount with a Losmandy Gemini 1 computer running the mount.

In addition to the MI250, I also have a Losmandy G11 mount which I use as a semi-portable mount. The G11 is a PUSH-TO configuration, with digital encoders and an Argo Navis Digital Setting Circle unit attached.

I also have a small iOptron mount which I primarily use for solar observing

I have a number of telescopes which I use to image. Essentially, the larger the telescope, the smaller the section of the sky which can be imaged. As a result, different telescopes are used for different sized objects.

My largest telescope is a 14” (diameter) LC200R catadiotric telescope which I use on the MI250 mount.

My next largest telescope is my MN86 Maksutov Newtonian. This scope was built by the same firm which made the Russian military optics before the breakup of the Soviet Union. The joke is that the telescope is built like a Russian tank - and looks like one too (is is pretty utilitarian). But the optics are spectacular.

My next largest scope is only 120mm in diameter, but may be the scope which gets used the most. It is made by SkyWatcher and is a refractor.

I also have several cameras which I use to image celestial objects with.

My workhorse camera is my SBIG ST4000XCM. It is a 4k by 4K color imager with a Kodak CCD imaging chip. This camera can get about 20 or 30 degrees C below ambient temperature, and has a small CCD chip built in for guiding so no external guide camera is needed. (Very nice) This camera is no longer being made, but still works fine.

I also have a Quantum Scientific Imaging QSI683WSG camera. This is a back and white camera, so it can only take monocrome images. In front of the camera is attached a filter wheel which contains a series of filters (Red, Green, Blue, Hydrogen Aplha). So to take color images, I need to take a number of images through each color filter, add together all the images taken through the same color filter in software, and then combine the different color master images (which are each black and white) to create the final color image. This camera has the highest possible resolution of my cameras, but it is a lot of work to create color images. The biggest problem is the amount of time needed to gather all the needed images. Often the weather does not allow me to take enough images in one night, so the imaging of a single object can take several nights or weeks to gather. Like the ST4000XCM above, this camera has a CCD sensor from Kodak.

My new camera is a QHY183C from QHYCCD. It is a very modern camera, and in some ways right on the cutting edge. Instead of a Kodak CCD imaging chip, this camera uses a Sony IMX183 CMOS imaging chip. This is an Exmor series chip, and has extremely low noise with a readout noise of only one electron! It also has very small pixels of only 2.4 microns, and is a 20 megapixel sensor. This camera requires a very different way to image. Instead of taking say 10 images, each 2 minutes long, with this camera you might take 100 images 15 or 30 seconds long. This creates a massive amount of data since each images is a 20 MP frame, and processing that number of frames takes some time. Once nice thing about this camera is that it is USB 3.0 so the frames download pretty fast. On the other hand, this camera requires a separate guide camera be setup since there is no internal guide chip.