Telescope Summary

This table gives the focal length and other key specifications for each telescope.

Scope Focal Length Aperture Inches Aperture MM F Weight Kg
GSO 8" RC 1,625 8 203.2 8 7.5 *
North Group ED127 950 5 127 7.5 9.97
Maxvision MN152 740 6 152 4.8 6.9
WO Megrez 72FD 432 2.8 72 6 2.7

* With 2" extension tube, OAG and guide camera attached

Previous scopes: Celestron Nexstar SE8

Camera Summary

The following table details the sensor and pixel size for each camera.

Camera Chip Type Sensor Size mm Resolution Pixel Size μm
Nikon D50 Sony ICX413AQ DX 23.70 x 15.60 3,008 x 2,000 7.8
QHY5 Micron MT9M001 1/2 6.66 x 5.32 1,280 x 1,024 5.2
Philips Toucam Sony ICX098BQ 1/4 4.6 x 3.97 659 x 494 5.6
Canon 500D   APS-C 22.3 x 14.9 4752 x 3168 4.7
QHY9 KAF-8300   17.96 x 13.52 3326 x 2504 5.4

Field of View

Field of view in degrees and arc minutes. Some of the data in this table was measures by Astrometry and the remainder was calculated from the approximation formula (source: Digital SLR Astrophotography by Michael A. Covington, page 59)

FOV (degrees) = 57.3 * Sensor Size (mm) / focal length (mm)

Scope Toucam Arc Min QHY5
Arc Min		 D50
Arc Min		 D50
Degrees		 500D
Arc Min		 500D Degrees QHY9
Arc Min		 QHY9
Degrees
GSO 8" RC 9.73 14.09 50.43 x 33.53 0.84 47.18 0.79 38.8 x 29.1 0.63
ED127 16.65 24.10 84.71 x 56.33 1.43 80.70 1.35 65.00 1.08
MN152 21.37 30.94  110.11 1.83 x 1.22 103.60 1.73 83.44 1.39
Megrez 36.61 53.00  188.61 3.88 x 2.58 177.47 2.96 142.93 2.38

Arcseconds per pixel

  Camera
Scope Philips Toucam QHY5 Nikon D50 Canon 500D QHY9
GSO 8" RC 0.71 arcsec/pixel 0.66 arcsec/pixel 0.99 arcsec/pixel 0.60 arcsec/pixel 0.70 arcsec/pixel
ED127 1.22 arcsec/pixel 1.13 arcsec/pixel 1.69 arcsec/pixel 1.02 arcsec/pixel 1.17 arcsec/pixel
MN152 1.56 arcsec/pixel 1.45 arcsec/pixel 2.17 arcsec/pixel 1.31 arcsec/pixel 1.51 arcsec/pixel
Megrez 2.67 arcsec/pixel 2.48 arcsec/pixel 3.72 arcsec/pixel 2.24 arcsec/pixel 2.58 arcsec/pixel

Celestron NexStar 8 SE

8SE

Click here for more info.

Maxvision MN152

MN152

Click here for more information about this scope and how I acquired it.

ED127 APO

ED127

Click here for more information.

Skywatcher EQ6 Pro

EQ6

This mount was purchased with astrophotography in mind. It is in fact a standard EQ6 that has had the stepper motors, board and hand controller upgraded. That's why it's black and not the standard white color.
The mount has 3 modifications since I purchased it.

The most significant one is to use EQMOD instead of the hand controller.

Secondly I have reduced the noise it was making while slewing.

The other modification was to add a Geoptik saddle plate to allow the imaging and guiding scopes to be mounted simultaneously.

Williams Optics Megrez 72 Doublet APO

I acquired this scope in September 2009. It's a very solid looking scope with beautiful CNC machines parts. I use this scope for imaging and guiding. The retractable dew shield does a great job keeping dew off the objective lens. As an imaging scope, I found that stars in the corners tended to be elongated, radiating out from the center of the image. This seems to have been fixed to a large degree by a Williams Optics 0.8 Reducer/Flattener II.