Equipment

As I noted on the main Astronomy page, I bought this NexStar 8 when Celestron started producing them in 2000. This is a photo of me with that original telescope.

The Nexstar 8 is light and easy to carry from my office where it is stored to the back deck for a night of impromptu viewing, but it is also large and bulky, making it cumbersome for any kind of extended travel.

For portability in the form of taking the telescope to campsites or other travel situations, I bought a 127mm (~5 inches) SkyView Pro telescope from Orion. It is a Maksutov-Cassegrain design, which is of Russian origin. It is very durable and packs up into a small, easy to transport configuration.

Celestron subsequently developed a newer Nexstar 8 that incorporated a GPS unit to assist with the initial alignment process as well as some improvements with the scope software. In 2003 I sold my original NexStar 8 and bought the new version, the NexStar 8i.

I built a controller for my Orion Dew Zapper because my it ran hotter than I needed and would suck the life out of my portable field battery in just a couple of hours.

Click the image to see how to build this Dew Zapper controller yourself.