Astrophotography Imaging Hardware

Monochrome Rig Featuring Zenithstar 61 and asi294mm pro camera with 7nm SHO filters

One shot color imaging rig featuring Redcat 51 and asi183mc pro astro camera

DSLR Rig featuring Askar FMA180 and Canon 750d astromodified

Astro imaging from the backyard garden observatory.   A small area for viewing the night sky, but enough to image lots of nice deep sky objects.  Can get things all quickly setup in under 10 minutes.  This includes assembly of rig, taking it outside (very lightweight, can be done in one trip including external battery pack), polar alignment, goto then focusing on a bright star (using the H filter), goto and confirming specific target, starting and checking autoguiding, and finally setting up the imaging sequence, typically a set of 12 5 minute sub frames divided evenly between H, S and O filter).  Take down is even faster, maybe just five to ten minutes to put everything away.  The asiair makes this all a breeze, and I can just use my iphone to do all the imaging control.

Focusing using the Bhatinov mask, for the zenithstar with asi294mm pro, the focus point is around the 24mm mark, the 5 minute sub for H-alpha shows lots of nice nebulosity and detail even with the fairly wide 7nm filters.