The Vespera telescope is the latest offering from Vaonis, a French start-up. The company launched the Vespera (a mini version of its Stellina telescope launched in 2018) in October on Kickstarter. It is a hybrid between a smart telescope and a camera that is priced at a $999US (the Stellina […]
Observing Mars is a favorite pastime of amateur astronomers who are planetary observers. This week on the Sky-Watcher USA What’s Up? Webcast, the Sky-Watcher team discusses the best ways to observe Mars, including what are the equipment options to do so. The What’s Up? is a live webcast held every […]
The ZWO Filter Drawer for EOS Lens was created to work with ZWO ASI cooled cameras and an EOS lens. A 2″ mounted filter will fit securely in the drawer for use during astrophotography sessions. The ZWO Filter Drawer pairs with ZWO ASI cooled cameras that have a 17.5mm back […]
The Sharpstar SCA260 is an aspherical Cassegrain with a short focal ratio. The fact that the primary mirror is aspherical means that it has a high grinding difficulty for production and its testing requirements can be more complex than some traditional primary mirror types. The primary and secondary mirrors are […]
The new GM 2000 HPS II COMBI mount from 10Micron combines the stability of the company’s GM2000 HPS II Monolith mount with the portability of the company’s GM 2000 HPS II Ultraport mount. These two mounts are no longer being produced and will be replaced by the GM 2000 HPS II COMBI successor model. This […]
Sequence Generator Pro (SGP) is releasing an upgrade to its software platform with its introduction of SGP4 automation software for astrophotography. With SGP you can sequence and coordinate all of your gear in order to make the most of your time under dark skies. The software suite will control your […]
The Pocket Sky Atlas from Sky & Telescope has been released in its second edition. The first edition was released in 2006 and it quickly became a popular resource for amateur astronomers. The Pocket Sky Atlas is available in standard and jumbo sized version which are identical in content and only differ […]
B&D Astro Accessories is a new company offering astronomy accessories including counterweights and dovetails. The owners and operators, Larry Beatty and Mike Dennis, have been avid amateur astronomers for over 50 years and bought Robin Casady Astro Accessories to form the new company. According to the Mike and Larry, “Robin’s […]
ASCOM Alpaca for FocusLynx is now available through Optec’s FocusLynx Alpaca driver v3.50. With the release of ASCOM Platform 6.5 Optec has released Alpaca drivers and software for FocusLynx and ThirdLynx controllers. Installer packages for Windows, Raspberry Pi, Linux and Mac are available. Optec’s Daniel Van Noord has been working […]
The Sharpstar 121 SDQ is an apochromatic Petzval quintuplet refractor with a focal ratio of f/5.6. The telescope features a five-element in two groups design that includes one Japanese FPL-53ED lens and a full-surface multi-layer coating. The air-spaced triplet objective includes the ED glass element and the rear doublet acts […]
The Canon Powershot Zoom is a new camera best described as a spotting scope or monocular which shoots stills and video. Canon recently launched the PowerShot Zoom exclusively in Japan through a crowdfunding campaign on Makuake, a Japanese crowdfunding site. Since the camera was immediately available to crowdfunding participants after the […]
The new QHY600L Lite is a newest version of the QHYCCD QHY600 series of cameras. It is very much like the PHOTO version of the QHY600 camera with a few exceptions that help to make it among the most competitive IMX455 based camera on the market. The QHY600L Lite uses […]