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Anyone have a description or pictures of some of the setups these "professional amateurs" have? I'm sure some of them run well over $100,000.

I am in the process of building a small observatory to house my 10" Schmidt Cassegrain Catadioptric telescope. It's currently on an equaltorial mount, but it will be on a permanent pier once the observatory is built..

It uses a series of lenses an mirrors and is computer operated. It has a database of over 65,000 objects and is operated with a numbered key pad, where one can punch in the coordinates of a specific object and the telescope will go directly to it. It will also be able to be operated remotely with software that will control the telescope from my desktop PC inside my house.

I currently obtain images using a film format with a 35mm camera, but hope to obtain a used CCD digital camera someday in the near future. They are expensive but they are much more sensitive to low light objects than film, and there is no film processing involved, you get the image on the computer screen almost instantly. Once the image comes up on the computer screen it can then be moved into photoshop for enhancement and further digital processing. I have some photographs of the Planet Saturn, and Jupiter, and several of the Orion Nebula, and many shots of the lunar surface, all on film format. If I can figure out how to post them I will. That's something I just haven't done yet, but need to figure it out.

Impressive. You must live in the mountains. Here in Socorro, NM, New Mexico Tech has a small observatory. The air is clear here and not a lot of light polution. I'm astronomically illiterate, but I got a real good look at one of the comets and was impressed.

Hi Joe, it sounds like you're almost set up to do some serious comet hunting already (if that's your cup of tea). Always wanted to give it a try myself (on a strict budget first, of course). If I liked it enough to stick with it on a small scale then perhaps I'd move up to a more expensive layout (something to give those amazing Japanese "amateurs" a run for their money! :-).

Having images piped directly to your PC and being able to control the telescope from inside is very cool and a must in my book (who wants to sit outdoors all night long in the cold, lol?). Ditto CCD. Amazingly, not so long ago, neither of these was possible. And the big scopes out there nowadays would astonish amateurs of 20 or 30 years ago. Just wish I didn't live so close to the city.

Maybe I'll start out with one of those 10" Dobs from Orion for $600. Just slew and look, easy peasy (but cold and uncomfortable). :-)