Morning Star Observatory Equipment

An observatory is no good unless it has telescopes, cameras, software to control, and accessories! Click on the tabs below to see list of the telescopes, cameras, software, and accessories of the observatory.

  • Telescopes
  • Cameras
  • Software
  • Accessories

Meade 12" LX200R

At the heart of the MSO is the Meade 12" (305mm) LX200R telescope. It is mounted on a Meade super-wedge, which in turn is mounted on a 6" steel pier. Meade has since renamed this telescope to be the LX200ACF.

It has superb optics with Meade’s Ultra High Transmission Coatings (UHTC) which allows up to 19% more light transmission than traditional Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes.

Meade 80mm APO Refractor

This 80mm refractor is mounted pigg-back on the LX200R and is serves two purposes: 1) a guide telescope when imaging with the LX200R and 2) wide-field imaging. For imaging, an APO is the way to go as the have excellent color correction and yield sharp images.

Williams Optics 80mm Megrez

This is the original Megrez and was billed as a "semi-APO" when it was first introduced. This was used originally as a guide telescope, but because it isn't an APO, it suffered from chromatic abberations. Images taken with it have blue halos around the brighter stars. The Meade 80mm was purchased to solve the chromatic aberration problem.

LX200R