My Equipment - Bits & Bobs

So I have probably covered the main pieces of equipment I have in regards to my attempt to start the hobby of astronomy and now I need to explain to you the other miscellaneous things I have. The first of these is a webcam which I bought within a week of getting the telescope so that I could try and get some good planetary and lunar images. I had actually assumed that I needed a DSLR or something to do some imaging but it turns out that webcams are actually the best thing to use for solar system objects. Webcams can also be cheap with the Xbox Webcam being the one I bought, although I paid a little bit more because I got one that had already been adapted for use. I just needed to buy a new Infra-Red Cut Filter and 1.25 Inch nose piece which would fit into my telescope. All in all it cost me £45 and I am pretty happy with it although I did have a little bit of an accident when I tried to clean the CCD chip but I think I saved it!

Other than this I also bought myself a Dew Shield after noticing that as each evening progressed my view began to get dimmer and dimmer from dew build up on the front of my telescope. I believe this is a common issue with a cold wet place like Scotland and a telescope such as my Maksutov-Cassegrain. To be honest it isn't much more than a black camping map rolled up to go around the front of the telescope as per the image to the right but it seems to work!

The two other items I use are actually things I already owned prior to getting the telescope. The first of which is my Canon Ixus 75 Point and Shoot camera which I have been madly using to try and capture wide field shots. Supposedly I could also  use it to take pictures via an eyepiece on the telescope as well but I have the webcam for the type of pictures I could get via that method.

The final item are my pair of 10x50 binoculars which I have had since my teenage years when my parents bought them for me. What annoys me is that I had no idea I could see double stars, nebula or open clusters with them so they had sat wasted in a cupboard for years. Now though I have already used them even so often to see the Orion Nebula, to split Mizar and Alcor in the plough and view the Pleiades Open Cluster. I wish I had known how much I could see with these binoculars in the past but I am at least enjoying using them now.

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