For Christmas, 2001, I gave myself a telescope. After a doing a bit of research on the web, I bought an eight inch Meade dobsonian. They had just been discontinued, so I got what I thought was a pretty good price. As a result of my research, I bought the Meade with the understanding that I would have to make changes to the scope, but that was going to be part of the fun since I love to tinker. With the Meade, there were so many things that need to be changed that I had absolutely no qualms about drilling new holes in the tube to try something. So far, I have completely rebuilt the base, replaced and relocated the altitude bearings, removed a large steel plate from behind the mirror to enable the scope to cool down, and installed a fan to speed up the cooling process. It is amazing to me that Meade ever sold such a poorly designed scope, (it is easy to see why it was discontinued) but the optics are pretty good and after all of the changes, it is a pretty good dobsonian. I keep it at my vacation home as an emergency scope.


The nice little Nexstar 80GT was my first foray into goto astronomy. It has been a blast to play with. It is amazing that you can buy a computerized goto scope for less than $300.00. This little scope simply couldn't compete with the 8 inch Meade Dob for deep sky objects, but with the Nexstar, I had a chance to find them. I was having great difficulty finding the faint fuzzies with the Meade because with the light polluted skies of Phoenix, the normal "guide" stars were simply not visible. Actually, very few stars are visible to the naked eye from my driveway. At least with the Nexstar, I now know where to look.


Since then, I have had the Nexstar 4GT, the Nexstar 5i, the Nexstar 8GPS and now, the Nexstar 11GPS. I have sold, traded, or given away the N80GT, the N4GT, and the N8GPS. I still have the N5i and the N11GPS. I have the Nexstar 11GPS riding a set of Wheely Bars, which allows me to roll the big scope out of the garage and be set up in about five minutes. I have mounted a Stellarvue AT1010 OTA piggyback onto the N11 GPS. It seems to get me the best of both worlds and tracking for the wide-field scope is vastly improved.


My latest adventure is astrophotography. The picture of the moon at the top of this page was taken with a Phillips ToUcam Pro webcam. The Nexstar works very well with the webcam and I have taken some nice moon and planet shots at prime focus of the big scope. I have a SAC 7B and a SAC 8 astro camera. The webcam was a whole lot easier to master... The SAC cameras work very well, when they work, but have some software issues, at least for me. Now, don't get me wrong, the SAC 8 is probably the best value on the market for a VERY sensitive black and white camera, but I have had a lot of trouble getting the software to run on my computers. For Christmas, 2004, I acquired a used Canon 10D. On the downside, it is not cooled and will probably not work well in the summer in Phoenix, but it is certainly easier to use than the SAC cameras.


Just like my Meade dobsonian telescope, this site is constantly under construction, so please be patient with any problems that might occur. If you come across any holes in the programming, just assume I am looking for an appropriate plug. (last update: 08/18/09)