QHY268m

• Very Good Value
• 3.76um pixels
• VERY Low read noise 1.08e per pixel
• 28.3mm diagonal sensor sensor
• High sensitivity
• Low Dark Current

ZWO asi2600mm

• 3.76um pixels
•  Low read noise 1.3e per pixel
• 28.3mm diagonal sensor sensor
• High sensitivity
• Low Dark Current

Televue Paracorr Type 2

Coma is the big aberration that owners of newtonians have to overcome. Tele Vue’s Paracorr type 2 coma corrector is I’ve heard the best coma corrector on the market (see this link to brilliant astrophotographer Lyaphine: ). Thing is it does have a does have a few foibles. It magnifies the image by 15% which is fine for Betty, making her effectively a F4.5 scope rather than an F4 but critically the Paracorr also pushes the focus back by 47mm. This can cause problems because it means the weight of the camera is now 47mm further back than it would be without the Paracorr and most poor outstretched focusers will not be able to handle the resulting extreme amount of torque. Betty however is longer than most scopes. Her natural point of focus without the corrector is in front of the camera. With the coma corrector the point of focus shifts to within the camera’s grasp. So betty will only work for astrophotography with this coma corrector.

• awesome corrector
• pushes focus 47mm outwards which makes it unusable with most Newtonians. There are some alternatives on this page.

Baader SteelTrack Diamond NT

The Baader diamond steeltrack focuser is FAR better than the Crayford focusers I used previously. I can’t imagine feathertouch focusers are much better but then again I’ve never used one! This focuser is super smooth and doesn’t tilt even with my 2 kg camera load:

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Optolong

I use Optolong LRGB, Ha, Oiii, Sii filters which have performed extremely well.  I’ve not had any halo issues and I appreciate the fact that optolong guarantee the throughput which other manufacturers don’t necessarily do. And because I live in London I’ve opted for the  3  nanometer bandpass ultra narrow band filters which are more expensive but we’re much better in highlight pollution in environments (like the big smoke).

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ZWO OAG v2

This unit collects a bit of light from the edge of the light cone which is heading towards the main camera and diverts the light to a guide camera. Hopefully this stolen nuggest of light has a star in its field of view (normally with a fast telescope like betty it will have many stars otherwise you have to rotate the guider around the light cone until you find a star) which you can then use via PHD software to guide the mount. A good solid OAG is the most accurate way to guid your mount. This relatively cheap OAG performs very well. I find I don’t need a helical focuser I can get good enough focus by adjusting the guide camera position by hand so why spend more?

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ZWO ASI 178MM

The   ZWO’s asi178mc or asi178mm. This is a very fine lunar, solar and planetary camera can also be used for deep space astrophotography. To be honest the credit for choosing this camera really goes to the roboscope Stellina  although I had run a few tests on the imx178 sensor a few years before. The colour version is fantastic  but for extra flexibility and performance you’ll need the mono version.

Cooling: I have made a peltier cooler for my asi178. You can see it in action in this VIDEO There was a time when you could buy a cooled version of this camera but sadly no more.