Telescopes
- Celestron 9.25″ Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT)
Native focal ratio: f/10, focal length: 2350mm
Mounted on a Celestron CGEM II equatorial mount.- Celestron 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT)
Native focal ratio: f/10, focal length: 2032mm
Mounted on a Celestron AVX equatorial mount.- Celestron 8″ StarSense Explorer Dobsonian
Primarily used for visual observing; great for quick, push to object sessions using a smartphone interface.
Guiding
- Celestron StarSense Autoguider
I use one dedicated autoguider for each SCT. Once configured, these do a solid job of maintaining accurate tracking over longer exposures.
Imaging Accessories
- Starizona HyperStar 4
Converts the Celestron 8″ SCT to a fast f/1.9 system with a 390mm focal length. This is a major upgrade for wide-field imaging and shorter exposure times.- Starizona SCT Corrector 4 (0.63×)
A focal reducer and coma corrector, bringing the f/10 SCTs down to approximately f/6.3. Handy for increasing the field of view—though I’ve had mixed results with it.
Camera
- ZWO ASI2600MC Pro (Ă—2)
I use one for each SCT. These cooled color cameras have been incredibly reliable, producing many of my best images to date.
Software
- Imaging – SharpCap
Great features, easy to use and understand, Live Stacking, and great support- Image Processing – PixInsight
Nothing compares to this product. Excellent product, excellent add-ons and excellent support.- Mount Control – CPWI
This software controls my searching for and slewing to cake work. Add my StarSense Autoguider, Celestron Focuser, my dew heater controller all work as once. And even better is simply using SharpCap to goto objects. Add on live stacking the communicates with my autoguider’s PHD2 server.
Observatory
As of late August 2025. U2 summed it right when they sang “I still haven’t found what I am looking for”. It is hard to believe that in March 2025, I tried to order 2 different observatories. Oddly enough both from the same country, Canada. I spoke with Wayne of SkyShed. The plan was to get a POD. The price was perfect. I loved that half clam design would block wind while still allowing me to do a StarSense align. Unfortunately, after a month I got tired of waiting for him to get me a shipping price. He was no longer retuning emails. This lead me to NexDome. Babak was great during the informational call, the sale and the shipping information. Unfortunately, he was story telling. He knew what I wanted to hear and gladly took payment. In his documentation and the call he gave me a 12 week shipping time. It was early April when I ordered. I expected delivery of my observatory by the 15 week period; end of June. By the end of July still no word, not a peep. I emailed. After a week without a response. I used the chat on the NexDome website. After 2 days without a response. I called the phone number on the bottom of the invoice. It had been disconnect! I knew he called me to concerning my credit card and the Canadian / US conversion rate and fees. I was excited when I saw it was a different phone number. No answer! I opened dispute with my credit card company. They immediately started an investigation and took it off my balance while they investigated. About 3 weeks later they closed the case in my favor. So my next step is a roll-off. Not what I wanted. I am disappointed – another let down from this expensive hobby!
For the record there was one email, one web site contact us, 2 phone calls after. Email was the last week of July. Contact message was first week of August. Phone calls and started dispute was August 9. A Saturday. And you can see by the subject line that he responded to my website message from August 2nd.
This is a copy/paste of what was emailed to me:
From: sales nexdome.com <sales@nexdome.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 6:08 PM
To: Ken Lovely
Subject: Re: [nexdome] Contact Us 3 – new submissionHi Ken,
I just discovered the emails you sent regarding Order #3142 in our Junk folder today, and I understand why you disputed the transaction due to our lack of response. I sincerely apologize for this oversight — I should have been checking the Junk folder more regularly.
I was planning to email you early next week to request your SSN or Tax ID for customs purposes (no taxes would be charged, to the best of our knowledge). The delay occurred because one or two of our recent shipments to other customers were incorrectly charged duties. We’ve been working with customs to resolve this issue and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
We have now agreed with customs on a specific HS code that classifies the item as an astronomical telescope accessory under the CUSMA agreement, meaning it should be duty-free (as it was prior to the Trump tariffs). We even sent a trial shipment under this classification to confirm, and it has cleared without duties.
Your order is now scheduled for pickup next Wednesday, and I can provide shipping documents as proof. However, our credit card processor has given us only four days to resolve the chargeback. If it remains in place, it will severely impact our credit and could close our account.
I kindly ask you to reconsider the dispute and allow us to proceed with shipping your order next week. I assure you that the delay was entirely to protect you from unnecessary customs charges, and I take full responsibility for not responding sooner.
Thank you for your understanding,
Babak
NexDome Observatories Inc.
109 – 1585 Broadway St.
Port Coquitlam BC V3C 2M7
CanadaWeb: www.NexDome.com
Email: sales@nexdome.com