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Telescopes / Binoculars:
   
Celestron 11 XLT on Losmandy G-11 My latest purchase (Jan. 2008) is a  Celestron 11 XLT on a Losmandy G-11 mount!
The C11 will be the successor of the C8 for high resolution planetary imaging.

This system is really BIG! When I assembled all the components it got bigger and bigger, but I think it is still portable.

The telescope is waiting for first light and to be tested on the stars. I keep my fingers crossed that the optics is fine!

Edit: First light was successful! The telescope was slightly out of collimation but after fixing that, it performed as expected. Click here for some pictures...
    
Celestron 8 SCT I also use a Celestron 8 SCT (203mm/2030 mm) on a Vixen Great Polaris German mount. The mount has electrical drive in both axis.

For long exposure imaging I have a  60/700mm refractor guiding telescope from Celestron.









    
Takahashi FS 102 APO  I was able to catch one of the last Takahashi FS 102 N refractors (since this telescope is discontinued by Takahashi).

The FS is an air spaced doublet fluorite Apochromat (Fraunhofer design). The front lens is made of CaF2, a synthetic grown calcium fluorite mono crystal with excellent optical performance. Aperture is 102mm, focal length is 820mm (f/8).

The picture on the left also shows a 2" diagonal mirror and a 6mm Vixen LV eyepiece.

    
Zeiss Diascope 85 T* FL  The fourth instrument is the Zeiss Diascope 85 T* FL on an azimuth mount and photo tripod. The scope is a 5 lens "Super Achromat" with Zeiss T* coating. The term "FL" is a little bit confusing since Zeiss is not using CaF2. The optical system consists of a special sort of extra low dispersion glass (FPL-53) which contains fluorite ions.

I mainly use this instrument for visual observations. It is very portable and delivers considerable performance on deep-sky, but also on the moon and planets due to the high contrast and fine optics.

Aperture is 85 mm in diameter, focal length is 502mm (f/5.9).

    
Zeiss Victory 8x42 T* FL 

I also use the Zeiss Victory 8x42 T* FL binocular to travel through the Milky way.












  Photo: Courtesy Carl Zeiss AG  
   

Cameras
    
DMK 21AF04.AS I just started some experiments with a DMK 21AF04.AS camera (The Imaging Source) together with a filter wheel and L-RGB filters from Astronomik.

The camera is used for high resolution planetary imaging.

The picture on the left shows the cam after a "cool" night of imaging, you can see the following configuration:

Back of my C8 and then a 2" visual back, a 1.25" reducer, Televue 3x Barlow lens, Atik Filter Wheel, T-Thread adaptor and DMK 21AF04.AS camera. The camera is connected to the Laptop via Firewire (IEE 1394) which is a high speed connection allowing a maximum of 60 fps.
    
Philips ToUCam Pro Webcam For planetary imaging I also use a Philips ToUCam Pro 740K web cam together with a Toshiba Satellite 2410 Notebook.

This is a very simple, but excellent planetary camera. I've had some great results with this cam.







  
CANON EOS 400D My latest camera-purchase: The Canon EOS 400D.

The CMOS sensor has a resolution of 10.1 mega pixels.

I will mainly use it for deep sky imaging...

Waiting for first light!







    
CANON T70 The Canon T70 SLR is an analog film camera.

I took my first astro images with it.










    
My observing site is in Germany at N 51°50' and E 09°08' approx. 150 m above sea level.