About & Equipment

This site was originally my PhotoBlog, but I have now added my astronomy interest into the site too. It’s called ForthImage as I originally did a lot of my photography around the River Forth, the river on which the city of Edinburgh stands. It’s a place where I can post my images purely for the fun of it! Feel free to: ahhhhh with delight (unlikely), snigger with derision (likely), or offer (de-)constructive criticism (welcome).

See dark matter masquerading as dust on my camera sensor; marvel at the weird and other-worldly effects of my feeble attempts at image processing; hoot with laughter at gravity winning yet again as I drop an expensive eyepiece on the observatory floor; empathise with the pain of the verbal tongue-lashing my wife gives me for leaving yet another piece of scrap telescope lying around the house; yell with vitriolic rage at the ugly orange glow of the encroaching streetlights; share in the depressing gloom of total cloud cover and the continuous rain we have come to “know and love” in this country; enjoy the wonders of the universe. It’s an amazing place!

I have a home-made roll-off roof observatory, sitting on the remains of the walls of an old WWII air raid shelter. My DIY skills are functional, rather than aesthetic: it works – but it’a bit rough! It’s also a bit damp so is proving to be an ideal place for mushrooms to grow.

Equipment

  • EQ6 Pro goto mount / EQMOD software control / upgraded ADM dual mount saddle
  • Altair Astro RC8 200mm f8 Ritchey-Chretien
  • Skywatcher Explorer 200P – 8″ f5 Newtonian (main imaging scope)
  • SkyMax 180 Pro 7″ Maksutov-Cassegrain
  • Celestron C80ED (used as a guidescope mostly)
  • Meade ETX 90RA
  • 10″ f5.1 Newtonian (old Hinds ‘A’ mirrors, not used at the moment as it needs re-aluminzed)
  • Canon EOS 350D DSLR – modded, fitted with Baader filter
  • Baader Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector (MPCC)
  • Astronomik EOS clip CLS filter
  • Skywatcher 2″ light pollution filter
  • “Old” Lumicon 2″ Deep Sky filter
  • Imaging Source DBK 21AU618.as  (guider and lunar/planetary)
  • Philips SPC900NC webcam – unmodded
  • Gemini dual mount bar
  • Some eyepieces and barlows

Software

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