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The Intes-Micro Alter 603 has proven to be an excellent instrument as can be seen by the lunar and planetary images.  The OTA is nicely finished and appears to be solidly built.   Nice touches like the carrying handle and dovetailed finder and accessory plate add to the convenience of this very portable instrument.  The telescope arrived from the distributor  well aligned and star diffraction rings on both sides of focus are essentially identical.  Focus is accomplished by moving the primary mirror and is quite smooth with no evidence of image shift which would be a nuisance with the CCD video work.  Star images are tight points of light in a very black field even from my backyard on the outskirts of Livermore (CA).  The planets and lunar surface features are extremely contrasty and sharp, and the telescope works quite well on clusters and planetary nebulas, though I have not done that much deep sky stuff with it.

So far the only complaint I have about the 603 is the long cool down time (typical of all Maksutovs).  I store it in my garage which is not heated, even so, cool down time is usually the better part of an hour.  The present equatorial mounting (Spectiva) is adequate for my purposes, but a heavier mounting is really desirable.  The tube assembly and dew shield are heavily baffled which adds to the overall diameter and weight of the telescope.  Scope proportions are closer to those of a 8" SCT.

Overall I rate the Alter 603 as an excellent instrument both optically and mechanically and when one considers the price (approx. $1200) and portability, it's an very good alternative to the  Meade and Celestron SCTs, especially for lunar and planetary work.

Intes and Intes Micro Maksutovs are available from the good folks at  Earth and Sky Adventure Products of Morgan Hill, California.

 
Cave Astrola 10" f/6 Newtonian
Purchased new in the mid 70's, the 10" has logged more hours than I care to guess measuring variable stars visually and photometrically, timing lunar and asteroid occultations and grazes and general sight-seeing.  Optically the instrument is most excellent, mechanically some improvements have had to be made or still need to be made.  The Astrola equatorial mounting is quite sound and with clutches on both axes, no locking knobs, very convenient to use.  With the rotating tube rings the eyepiece can always be kept at or near eye level which is a wonderful asset.

First results of video-capture astrophotography are most promising even under extremely turbulent conditions.  The weight of the Topika camera has little or no effect on tube balance making it easy to switch back and forth between eyepieces and camera.
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Astrovid 2000 by Adirondack Video Astronomy
Producers of the legendary Astrovid 2000 CCD video system and the new economical Astrovid 1000 video camera, AVA has definitely been on the fore front of video astronomy.  Both Astrovid systems use state of the art high resolution CCD video chips and utilize manual controls to adjust shutter speed, gain and gamma.  AVA also offers a variety of accessories for the Astrovid systems including flip-mirrors, high quality Dichroic filters, frame grabbers and image processing software.  Their excellent web site also contains a gallery of images that alone is worth a visit.

This camera is used widely by both amateurs and professionals through out the astronomical community.  It has a reputation for quality and reliability, and for producing images of the highest quality.  The 1/2 inch video CCD chip used in the Astrovid 2000 produces images superior to those made with a 1/3 inch chip camera such as the PC23C.

 
PC-23C
The video surveillance camera used is a Topica TP-505D/3 sold by Supercircuits as a PC-23C for under $100.  It has a 512 x 492 1/3 inch CCD chip with 7 x 9 micron pixels and 460 lines resolution.  The camera has an auto-electronic shutter, 1/30 - 1/100,000 speeds.  It is quite small, 2.3" x 2.0" x 3.7" and light weight, about 7 ounces (190g).  It runs off 12VDC (200mA) and has a built in microphone/audio output.
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Snappy Video Frame Grabber
The Snappy frame grabber is a very inexpensive, easy to install and easy to use tool that plugs directly into the printer port of a PC.  It operates in Windows and delivers amazing results at up to 1500 x 1145 resolution.  The deluxe version comes complete with some excellent software for processing images in B&W and color.  All of the lunar and planetary images on this web site were captured to the computer with a Snappy and the abbreviated version of Photo Shop supplied with the Snappy was used to process the majority of the images, including image stacking.  Snappy is produced by Play and is available in virtually any computer store.
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