Welcome to Simon's Astro

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About Simon's Astro

I started my journey into astrophotography in late 2020. During Covid, I had lots of time off work, and discovered Trevor Jones from Astrobackyard and Chucks Astrophotography on YouTube. That was it, I was hooked! Down the rabbit hole I went, and never came back! I started with a DSLR, a star tracker and a small telescope, the Redcat 51. It wasnt long before I upgraded to an astro cooled camera and a slightly bigger scope (see photo!) Eventually I built myself  a fully automated                            in my back garden, and you can follow the building process from start to finish on my YouTube channel. I now enjoy the benefits of a rig ready to go as soon as there is a clear sky just by pressing a few buttons! So if you would like to follow my astrophotography journey, why not click the links below, and join me on Youtube or follow me on Instagram, its free and could be fun!

My R.O.R Observatory and new garden area

My portable Heq5 & Askar FRA 400 rig

EQ6R Pro Mount & Esprit 120 ED

This rig is my observatory permanant set up. The mount is the Skywatcher EQ6R Pro, it has the AMD upgraded saddle and attached to that is my scope, the Esprit 120ED. This has a focal length of 840mm at F7. The main imaging camera is the ZWO 2600mm Mono camera with the ZWO 7 position 36mm filterwheel. Inside is the set of Antlia 3nm LRGB, Sii, Ha and Oiii unmounted filters. Running the rig, is the Mele Quieter 3 mini pc, and its all powered by the Pegasus power box Advance, which gets its power from my regulated mains power supply. The ZWO EAF is attached to keep everything in sharp focus. The guide scope is the Skywatcher Evo Guide at 250mm , the guide camera is the ZWO 120 mini and its all hard wired to my internet.

This is my portable rig that I often set up in my garden or out on location. The mount for this rig is the Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro, the setup consists of a cage effect made up with two losmandy plates by Founder Optics and two riser blocks by Altair Astro. The idea of the cage, is to be able to house the ASIAIR Plus, which is whats running everything and the Pegasus Power Box Advance. The scope is the Askar FRA400 F5.6 and the main imaging camera is the ZWO 2600 MC Pro, one shot colour camera. There is a single filter drawer attched which i swap out different 2" screw in filters depending on the target. The guide scope is the ZWO 30mm F4 and the ZWO 120 mini guide camera. The Pegasus Power Box gets its power from my Jackery 500 Explorer battery which will happily run the rig all night on a full charge.

This is my observatory and new garden layout to accomodate it. Part of the deal with my good wife for me having an observatory in the part of the garden which was laid to lawn, was that I made it look nice and blended it into the garden with a completly new look. So the plan was made for me to use modern materials with a contemporay feel. I achived this by using Hardie Planks on the observatory (coloured cement boards) with white UPVC door, fascia and barge boards and anthracite coloured porcelain tiles for the patio and the garden has been replanted with various types of plants. You can click on the video link here to see the complete transformation on my YouTube channel, Simon's Astro.