Gear
The imaging rig lives in the garden and runs unattended through the night. Acquisition happens on a mini PC at the mount; data lands on a NAS and gets processed indoors.
Telescopes
Sky-Watcher Esprit 100ED
Main imaging refractor
- Aperture
- 100 mm
- Focal length
- 550 mm (f/5.5)
- Design
- Triplet apochromat
Imaging cameras
Player One Poseidon-C Pro
Main imaging camera (one-shot colour)
- Sensor
- Sony IMX571, APS-C colour
- Pixel size
- 3.76 µm
- Cooling
- TEC, run at −10 °C
- Settings
- G125 / O50 (since Oct 2026), earlier G0 / O10
Guiding
Player One Ceres-M (IMX462)
Guide camera
- Sensor
- Sony IMX462, mono
- Pixel size
- 2.9 µm
Player One Sedna-M
Guide / planetary camera
- Sensor
- Sony IMX178, mono
- Pixel size
- 2.4 µm
Mounts
iOptron CEM60self-built
Equatorial mount, rescued second-hand and upgraded
- Type
- Centre-balanced equatorial
- Payload
- 27 kg
Bought with the “5-minute spike” and dead PC communication, repaired, then given a mini-PC holder on the DEC axis and new wiring and power. See CEM60 rescue and upgrades.
Accessories
OpenWheelself-built
Self-built motorised filter wheel, 4 × 2" filters, ASCOM driver
Computers
AstroPC
Acquisition mini PC at the mount, controlled over RDP
Captures to local disk; Syncthing ships every frame to a TrueNAS box indoors, where processing happens.
Software
N.I.N.A.
Acquisition and sequencing
PHD2
Autoguiding
SharpCap
Polar alignment, quick captures