I started imaging with a PST and eventually decided to try double stacking. This was not very impressive but I realised that with the addition of a blocking filter BF10 I could use the Skywatcher ED80 as the telescope. This has proved to be a good setup with a webcam.

The mount is a Skywatcher EQ5 with motors so I can point and focus at the pc. I have a motor focus from ebay and a secondhand solranger. I bought black and white ICX 098 and ICX424 sony CCD chips and modified two Philips Toucam pro webcams.

I use K3CCDTools to run the camera. In 20 seconds this makes a 100 frame .AVI video file at 5fps. I process this in Registax3 more or less like Didier Favre describes on his website. The final black and white image is processed in Photoshop to crop, colour or add text.

I also use a white light filter made from Baader Astrosolar film, a Cemax Barlow x2, Cemax 12mm eyepiece, Baader IR cut filter, Atik x0.5 reducer.

Modfied PST experiment