Equipment

My long focal length instrument is a 10" f/9 Ritchey-Chretien from RC Optical Systems in Flagstaff, Arizona.  

Many of the images on this site were taken using Takahashi Newtonian style optical tubes.  The optical tube pictured directly below is a Takahashi MT-200 and is shown in the configuration I use for CCD imaging.  The MT-200 has an 8" primary mirror and a native focal length of 1200 mm with a f-ratio of 6.0.  The mount is an Astro-Physics 1200 GTO.

Pictured below is the Takahashi MT-160 in CCD imaging configuration.  The MT-160 has a 6.25" primary mirror and its native focal length is 1000 mm at f/6.25.

 I also use a Takahashi Epsilon 160 f/3.3 astrograph for wide field CCD imaging with an SBIG ST-2000XM and for film photography with a 35 mm camera.  The Epsilon is sometimes guided through a separate Borg 76 mm guide scope using a SBIG ST-237A.

The picture below shows the Epsilon 160 attached to the mount by way of a custom dovetail plate and weight system fabricated for me by Jerry Stephenson.  The custom plate enables me to balance the front-heavy Epsilon and CCD camera combination.  E-mail me if you are interested in custom machining and milling work and I will send you Jerry's e-mail address. He does beautiful work at a very reasonable rate. 

All the images in this site are © Copyright 2009 by Dean Jacobsen.
Any use of these images without the prior written consent or knowledge of the author is strictly prohibited.
Contact Dean at  Webmaster  for more information.