ALTRINCHAM AND
DISTRICT
ASTRONOMICAL
SOCIETY
EQUIPMENT
This is a list of all the astronomical equipment which the society has, all of which is available for borrowing by members for their own use at home or on dark sky trips except the 14" telescope which is too large.
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Please click a symbol to request to borrow an item of equipment from the society
(N.B. Become a member to borrow the equipment)
14" Newtonian telescope on German equatorial mount. It is available for use by all members each Friday night and at other times by special arrangement.
LX90 SCT. This is a computer controlled, tripod mounted, portable telescope. It is quite heavy weighing in at about 45lb with its tripod. The picture shows it set up on its tripod with the computer control handset, 8x50 finder scope and the eyepiece diagonal for comfortable viewing.
ETX90 SCT. This is a small version of the LX90. It is very light and portable which means it can be set up considerably faster than than the LX90. It is also known as 'The Critchley Meade'.​
6" Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount. This is very light and portable and can be set up in seconds. No mucking about with batteries and aligning with guide stars. Plonk it on the ground or on a table and start observing. Pictured here with the society's web cam (see below).
20x100 binoculars. Also known as the 'MIA bins'. They have a mounting plate which can be placed directly onto a tripod or the parallelogram arm. There is also a heavy pedestal mount for these binoculars which is not shown in the picture.
20x60 binoculars. There is no mount for these binoculars nor any adaptor for clamping them to a tripod. If you borrow these then you will need your own clamp or have to hold them in your hands.
SBIG STV. This is a digital video camera that can take pictures through the eyepiece of a telescope and record them for downloading onto a PC for subsequent processing.​
Web Cam. This is a small digital camera with an eyepiece adaptor for taking astrophotos. This needs a PC to operate and there is an extension lead with it for this purpose. Ideally you need a laptop computer to use this or you have to be quite close to your PC.
