About & Equipment

This site was originally my PhotoBlog – which was destroyed by my ISP (thanks for nothing!). So 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! Many are first attempts as I’m still learning digital imaging. All very exciting really! 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!

The observatory houses the following:equip2-thumb

  • EQ6 Pro goto mount / EQMOD software control
  • NEW 14-1-2010: Skywatcher Explorer 200P – 8″ Newtonian
  • SkyMax 180 Pro 7″ Maksutov-Cassegrain
  • Celestron C80ED
  • Meade ETX 90RA with x0.5 reducer guidescope
  • 10″ f5.1 Newtonian (old Hinds ‘A’ mirrors)
  • Canon EOS 350D DSLR – unmodded
  • “Old” Lumicon Deep Sky filter (for LP reduction)
  • Philips SPC900NC webcam – unmodded
  • Gemini dual mount bar

equip3-thumb14/1/2010 Just got a Skywatcher Explorer 200P 8″ f5 Newtonian from Modern Astronomy. Plan to use this for astrophotography and relegate the C80ED to mostly guiding. Probably will need to get a coma corrector at some point for the Newtonian. See how it goes.

16/7/2009 Finally some actual pictures of my equipment. It’s all a bit knocked together really: an ETX-90 mounted in guide rings mouted on a C80ED. I replaced the rubbish, inaccessible finder on the ETX with a new 8×30 right-angled finder (not shown).