Telescopes:

I love telescopes and currently own several instruments, some are kept merely because I can't quite manage to part with them, others are used as portable instruments for special events or when an object is not visible from the observatory. This page lists all the instruments I currently own, but not all of them are shown in the photos.

3" F12 Achromatic Refractor

The telescope at left was the first instrument to be housed in the observatory. The telescope was purchased from a second hand shop in Birmingham in 1982. It was on a table tripod and was beautifully made with a painted brass tube and chrome on brass tailpiece. Over the next seven years I constructed the equatorial mount you see from some basic castings I had aquired. It features a 7" R.A. worm gear and a 5" Dec. worm gear as well as a large reduction gearbox and stepper motor drives on both axes. The telescope is currently out of action as the mount needs refurbishing. The faintest star I have seen with this telescope is mag.12.4.

Meade 10" LX200GPS

This telescope was aquired in August 2004, and is now the main telescope housed permanently in the observatory. This scope has superb f/10 SCT optics and a pointing accuracy of down to 1 arc min. This greatly facilitates locating very faint stars in difficult fields. The telescope is controlled by the Autostar II controller and the user object library contains the same programme stars as the ETX Autostar.
The faintest star I have seen with this scope is mag.15.3! This was an exceptional night when I saw this star and it was at the zenith.

Other Instruments

Meade ETX90RA

Carl Zeiss Jena, 10 X 50 Jenoptem Binoculars

I started observing variable stars using these binoculars, which I have had for about twenty five years. They have excellent optics and feature a seven degree field of view. Mounted on a tripod/mount I can go down to about Mag. 10.0

This was the first model of the superb line of Mak/Cass telescopes branded as the ETX by Meade. This scope does not have any computer contoller, but just a simple RA drive and slow motions in RA & DEC. An excellent small scope , very compact and light, always ready to go. The faintest star I have seen with this scope is Mag. 12.5.

Inpro Optics, 15 X 70 Binoculars

These recently aquired binoculars are extremly good for thier relatively low cost. They provide stunning views of the sky but require some kind of mounting.

Clockwork Drive:

This Clockwork drive was made from one of the timers that were used in streetlamps, as a result the spindle rotates once per day. Fitted with a suitable bracket and counterweights they make an excellent equatorial mount for cameras. Many years ago during the 1970's they became popular at BAA Winchester Weekends and the name 'Winchester Clockdrive' was coined. The one shown here one first prize at a 'Winchester Clockdrive' competition in 1991.

Meade DSI PRO CCD Camera:

I have been using this CCD camera to take images for photometry. I have not tested the camera for linearity or established its stability of it's response.