The Kit

What I shoot with.

A curated rig, field-tested from Bortle 1 to Bortle 9 sites. Each piece earns its place in the bag before a trip. Everything below is what I actually use, not what I’d like to use.

Affiliate disclosure. Some links below are Agena Astro affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to gear I own and use.

Mount & tracking

Sky-Watcher Wave 100i
Primary equatorial mount
The core of the rig. Handles the payload of the SharpStar refractor, filter wheel, and mono camera without complaint. Pairs with the Peer Extension and Carbon Fiber Tripod for setup rigidity in field conditions.
Available at Agena →
Wave 100i Peer Extension
Mount extension for tracker clearance
Raises the mount head above the tripod to give the imaging train clearance across the meridian.
Available at Agena →
Wave 100i Carbon Fiber Tripod
Tripod
Carbon fiber for the weight trade-off. Stable at load, light enough to carry to remote sites without rebuilding my back.
Available at Agena →
iOptron Sky Guider Pro
Portable star tracker
The travel rig. When the Wave 100i stays home, the Sky Guider Pro comes along. Wide-field work, quick setups, and eclipse chases when weight matters.
Available at Agena →

Optics

SharpStar EDPH-III
Primary refractor
The workhorse. Sharp across the field, forgiving on backfocus, and light enough for the Wave 100i to guide cleanly. Rosette Nebula (30 hours), 3I/ATLAS, and most of the recent deep-sky work came through this scope.
Available at Agena →
SharpStar 1x Flattener
Field flattener
Corrects field curvature so stars stay round to the edges. Matched to the EDPH-III’s optical design.
Available at Agena →
SVBony 30mm Guidescope
Guiding optics
Compact and light. Pairs with the guide camera and PHD2 to keep tracking sub-arcsecond during long integrations.
Available at Agena →

Cameras

Ares-M Pro
Deep-sky monochrome camera
Cooled mono sensor for the serious deep-sky work. Paired with the Phoenix filter wheel for LRGB and narrowband capture. The Rosette Nebula, 3I/ATLAS, and most 2026 targets are shot on this camera.
Available at Agena →
Player One Uranus-C
Planetary and lucky imaging
High-frame-rate one-shot color for planets, lunar detail, and the Moon-Saturn conjunction work. Different tool for different targets.
Available at Agena →
Canon EOS Rebel T7
Wide-field DSLR
Started here. Still here for wide-field, quick captures, and anywhere the mono rig would be overkill. Andromeda, Pleiades, and Orion Nebula from 2025 were all shot on the T7.

Accessories

Phoenix Filter Wheel
Filter wheel for LRGB and narrowband
Motorized filter wheel. Cycles through LRGB and narrowband filters remotely during long unattended imaging sessions.
Available at Agena →
ZWO EAF Autofocuser
Electronic focuser
Adjusts focus remotely between filter changes. Critical when temperature shifts through the night cause focus drift.
Available at Agena →
Mele Quieter 3Q Mini PC
Rig control computer
Fanless, low-power, runs NINA and PHD2 remotely. Sits at the mount, controls everything, no laptop tethered to the rig.
Neewer 16″ Dew Heater Strap
Dew prevention (main scope)
Wrapped around the SharpStar objective. Keeps dew off the lens through the coldest, wettest nights.
Available at Agena →
SVBony 6″ Dew Strap
Dew prevention (guidescope)
Sized for the 30mm guidescope. Same job, smaller scope.
Available at Agena →

How I choose.

Everything above earned its slot the hard way, through nights where something failed and I had to figure out why. Nothing here is on the list because it was hyped or because someone gave it to me.

Gear on the road is a weight and reliability problem before it is a performance problem. The Wave 100i replaced a heavier mount because it tracks the same and packs smaller. The Ares-M Pro replaced the T7 for deep-sky work because cooled monochrome pulls signal the T7 cannot. The T7 stayed because wide-field DSLR work is still its lane.

If you want to know what specific setup a particular image was captured with, each Gallery image lists the full rig used.

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