Equiment 2018-2020

	Orion Optics ODK16 When I decided to implement a remote observatory, I decided on an instrument that would be capable of doing astrophotography but should be used mainly for Variables. The ODK16 is a Corrected Dall-Kirkham design with a focal length of f6.8. It's mounted on an ASA DDM85 direct-drive mount and is equiped with an Apogee KAF16803 chip. This instrument is used mainly for surveying a wide variety of variable stars.
	Celestron C11 The Celestron C11 is a Smith-Cassegrain telescope and was chosen mainly because of it's huge light gathering capability but also for the short tube. It installed on my balcony and the shorter the focal length, the wider my reach is without hitting the railing. The tube is mounted on a AZ-EQGT and is equiped with a f6.3 focal reducer and an SBIG ST8XME CCD camera. Even from the lightpolluted city this instrument is capable of following variable stars and is used in scientific surveys.
	Vixen VMC200L The Vixen VMC200L is a maskutov design and was mainly chosen for it's short tube. I used it's little brother the VC200L in the past for astrophotography, but that tube proved to be a bit too long and hitted the railing frequently on my balcony. The VMC200L is a lot shorter. This instrument is mounted on an AZ-EQ5 mount and is permanently installed a SBIG ST8E CCD camera.

Equiment 2006-2010

	Vixen VISAC VC200L I am a astrophotographer, so what I need is a astrophotography setup. The Vixen VC200L is a 8" f9 cassegrain telescope with a corrector at the back of the scope. Vixen calls this a VISAC ("Vixen Sixth-Order Aspherical Catadioptric"). The corrector provides a coma free field; even for wet film astrophotography. The primary mirror has a special shape using the High-Precision Poly-Order Aspherical Mirror Molding Technique from Vixen. It also uses special coatings. The result is a mirror that provides very sharp images free of sperical and chromatic abberations. Most reviewers say that this is the Deepsky Astrophotographer best kept secret or "a poor man's RC".
	Vixen ED80sf The Vixen ED80sf is a cheap semi-apochromat wich uses a doublet with ED coatings. It uses the same ED objective from Orion but the "look and feel" is better. The ED lens is a doublet which corrects very good in green and red, but a slightly less better for the blue part of the spectrum. That's why pictures made with ED doublets often have blue halo's around the stars. The Vixen ED80 has a longer baffle tube. The focusser is sufficient to use for CCD astrophotography. It's a lightweight perfect for widefield astrophotography. The scope pretty is slow (f8) so for my camera this is perfect.
	SBIG ST10XME The CCD camera is a SBIG ST10xme with a dual chip for autoguiding. This NABG chip has a QE of almost 90%. A CFW8 filterwheel is attached with the use of SBIG custom scientific LRGB filters. The camera has a large field of view (2184 x 1472) with small pixels (6.8µm). This perfect for me, to do medium size deepsky astrophotography.
	114mm F8 Newton I have also a grab & go telescope which I use mainly as a allround instrument. It is a 4.5" F8 Newton on a Astro3 mount. This is the instrument I use for visual observations of the sun. The scope is rather old and it's the intrument I used when I began with this hobby. So it has also a special value to me. :-)

Equiment 2000-2006

Orion Optics 30cm F5.3 This was my first real "big" telescope. With the money I earned during summer while I was at college, I could afford a 30cm telescope on an old-school EQ6. A bit later I could obtain a SBIG ST7e CCD camera and off I go. Due to my inexperience I could not possibly imagine that a big heavy 30cm newton on an EQ6 was a bit too much. Still, I could obtain my first CCD images with this instrument. These can be found on my old homepage.