The journey began in the early 1990's with a gift "department store" Safari 9234 D60mm F700mm refractor with a mount one shouldn't breathe on. We knew absolutely nothing about telescopes or the night sky. This scope did produce the classic "Oh Wow" moment for us, when a bright star turned out to be Saturn. |
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We were foster parents for a Meade 8" LX200 SCT from a friend (not saying I was a neophyte but I first set it up with the wedge facing south).
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Later we were pleased to get a 6" Skywatcher Dobsonian (an Atlantic Photo Supply donated door prize) from another friend.
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Later a 3rd person graciously gave us a 10" Meade SCT that was occupying the corner of a garage. For that Optical Tube we purchased a Celestron CGEM DX mount for the Meade SCT to replace the non-go-to tripod mount (probably from the 1980s). Somewhere along the way we purchased a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer equatorial mount for imaging using our Nikon DSLR and lenses and useful when canoe camping.
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We added a Skywatcher Esprit 120 mm refractor telescope with a Celestron CGX mount with a Nikon Z7 Mirrorless camera as our primary astrophotography setup. |
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We have more recently added a Skywatcher EvoStar 80 mm refractor telescope with a iOptron AZ GTi mount (not shown) for portable observing, i.e. canoe trip astronomy. As shown here is a Benro Polaris Alt/Az computerized mount for panning and astrophotography. |
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