Other Equipment

A recent project was to build a 10” Dobsonian that could be checked in as standard baggage on an airline. Fitting within size and weight limits (23kg) was not easy, and providing sufficient protection was obviously important. Click here for construction details and more photos.

Here it is at the 2007 TSP.

A pair of Vixens (102FL and 120S) on a GPDX deluxe with goto drive Shown here in my Kendrick observing tent.
	My Miyauchi 100mm APO fluorite binos at the 2003 TSP when I managed to observe Pluto at Mag 13.6!
Now sold, this was my previous observatory set-up. A Celestron C8 deluxe mounted under a roll-off roof on an old Victorian wash house. The stored heat in the roof tiles made observing impossible until gone midnight!

Eyepieces

I find Televue eyepieces suit my scopes and my eyes. Personally I believe they are the best you can get. Others might come close, but not consistently.

I have now settled on the set shown in my homemade custom case (made out of Ash), which include,

35mm Panoptic
13mm Ethos
8mm Ethos
3.7mm Ethos SX110

The case is designed to cover both ends of each eyepiece so that I don't need to keep replacing the caps when changing eyepieces.

In the lid is a fold down hinged shelf for charts etc. This is easily lifted to allow access to the eyepieces.

In the lid is a light made by changing the 4 bright white LEDs in an OSRAM LEDstixx to dim red ones.

The box won the Texas Star Party ATM award for Design and Innovation in 2009

A removable inner box houses OIII, Hβ, UHC & IDAS light pollution 2" filters.