My current equipment consists of:

-Meade LX200 10" SCT OTA,
-Televue NP101 4" Apochromatic Refractor
-Astro-Physics AP1200GTO German Equatorial Mount
-Astro-Physics AP400GTO German Equatorial Mount
-SBIG ST-4 Autoguider
-Mini Borg 60mm f5.4 Achromatic Guide Scope, 325mm focal length
-Olympus OM-1
-Canon AE1 with modified long life battery setup, see below
-Canon FD lenses, 20mm f2.8, 24mm f1.4 L, 35mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8, 135mm f2.5 200mm f2.8, 300mm f4 L
-Canon Digital Rebel with 24-70mm f2.8 L lens and 70-200mm f2.8L lens.

At right is the AP400GTO and NP101. This is one of my favorite setups because of the superior tracking the AP400GTO provides. Using the ST4 to guide through the NP101 or the Mini-borg 60mm guide scope I can piggy-back any of my camera and lens combinations or shoot prime focus and achieve pinpoint stars. Exposures of 1 hour plus are easily achieved. This setup is also much lighter and therefore more portable than the new AP1200GTO.

The AP400GTO is limited to only 18lbs, but it does provide an extremely stable platform for astrophotography and visual use. The GoTO software makes finding and centering objects easy, but it is not a must have item unless you are imaging very faint objects. With good polar alignment taking unguided photo's of 20-25 minutes using short focal length lenses is easily obtainable. However, the ST4 allows me to use 200mm and 300mm lenses and guides the mount perfectly.

I have recently acquired an AP1200GTO, as of August 2004. Shown in the picture below, it is amazingly stable with my light setup. It is capable of handling up to 140lbs and currently I have about 20-25lbs on the mount. To date I have only used this setup for 3 nights consecutively, but I am very happy with the results so far. I have successfully imaged using the Mini-Borg 60mm guide scope for guiding while piggy backing camera lenses and shooting prime focus through the NP101 concurrently. This will be my primary setup until I transition to CCD imaging. The AP1200 was added to my equipment to allow future OTA upgrades. With this mount the options are almost limitless because of the mounts capacity.

The view to the right shows the camera guide scope configuration used in the initial tests. The camera lens is a 200mm Canon FD f2.8 lens with a Canon AE-1P attached. Both camera and guide scope are mounted to a custom made aluminum plate weighing 4 lbs. Many thanks to my friend Lee Myers of PHI for making several parts for me over the last few months.

The ST4 is a CCD camera but is strictly used as an autoguider. It doesn't require a laptop computer and can work off of AC or DC power. It is no longer available as a new unit but can be purchased on the used market. It sells used for about $500 - $700. There are newer and more expensive guiders available but this old workhorse serves its purpose well. The image below shows the ST4:

The learning curve is fairly steep for the ST-4, but this article on Instructions and Tips for Using the ST-4 on Chris Cook's website, by Jim Janusz is outstanding and has helped many budding astrophotographers. The other choice for autoguiding is the SBIG STV, it is excellent and can be used as a camera. The STV is also significantly more expensive than the ST-4. Some people have successfully used webcams to guide their astrophoto's. Whatever is used for guiding it is important to make sure there is zero flexure between the guider and the camera or scope.

When using my Canon AE-1 I need to have a battery setup that allows me long exposures without draining the battery that holds the shutter open. Many camera's such as my Olympus OM-1 do not require a battery to open the shutter. Without a long lasting battery I can only take 3-4 one hour long photo's before the battery dies. There is nothing worse than the shutter closing in the middle of an exposure. I have 2 different setups for my camera, one uses 4 D cell batteries in parrallel and the other uses a 6v converter from Radio Shack. The picture shown below shows the D cell battery setup, I have replaced the battery with a nylon dowl and 2 wires connected to each end as leads.. This setup allows me to get 30+ hours of exposures before I need new batteries.

For a picture of the old LX200 setup you can visit the photographer page. After the new AP1200 mount arrived I removed the OTA from the fork mount system to all it to be added to the AP1200GTO.

I've also added a Feather Touch Focuser to my NP101 which has made fine focus much easier, see the setup here.

My latest acquisition is a Canon Digital Rebel that I used to image the October 04 Lunar eclipse. I hope to use this soon to do more astrophotography.