About & Equipment - Forthimage

Mark Phillips This site was originally my PhotoBlog, but I have now changed it to be my astronomy website. 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! 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!

After 3 roll-off roof observatories (2 were blow-off roof) I now have a driven Pulsar dome sitting on my homemade wooden walls, sitting on a base that was originally a WWII air raid shelter (we think), with a homemade concrete-filled pier with brake-disc pier top.

Equipment

Current and used most:

EQ6-R PRO goto mount / EQMOD software control
Orion Optics (UK) 250mm f4.8 Newtonian, upgraded Baader Diamond Steeltrack focuser (imaging scope)
SkyMax 180 Pro 7″ Maksutov-Cassegrain (lunar / planetary) – great but unforgiving of bad seeing
Celestron C80ED guidescope
QHY168c colour CMOS camera incoming
SX Filterwheel 5 x 2″, 7 x 1.25″
ZWO ASI290MC (lunar/solar/planetary/guiding)
Altair Astro tri-band filter
IDAS D3 LPR filter
Baader Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector (MPCC)

I’ve gathered up quite a bit of junk over the years. Never seem to get rid of any…

Altair Astro RC8 200mm f8 Ritchey-Chretien (imaging scope) – hard work and unforgiving of collimation!
Skywatcher Explorer 200P – 8″ f5 Newtonian (imaging scope) – great all rounder – on loan to Nigel
Skywatcher EQ6 Pro goto mount – self belt mod, damaged Dec worm but mostly working – with Ian
Celestron C80ED on AZ GTi – grab-and-go telescope now
Skywatcher 70mm f/7.1 achromatic refractor (Mercury 705 – used as guidescope)
Meade ETX 90RA, unused
10″ f5.1 Newtonian (old Hinds ‘A’ mirrors, not used at the moment as it needs re-aluminzed)
ATIK 460EX mono,
Baader LRGB, Ha, OIII, SI, Rc filters
Canon EOS 350D DSLR – modded, fitted with Baader filter (unused)
Canon EOS 600D DSLR – screen intermittent fault
Brightstar off-axis guider (never use it!)
IDAS P2 LPR filter
Astronomik EOS clip CLS filter (on loan to Jono)
Skywatcher 2″ light pollution filter
“Old” Lumicon 2″ Deep Sky filter
Imaging Source DBK 21AU618.as (guider and lunar/planetary unused)
ADM dual saddle side-by-side mount
Gemini dual mount bar
Some eyepieces and barlows
Many, many tubes, connectors, adapters, cables and bits of astro-junk…