I currently use a Skywatcher 150 mm f/8 achromat refractor. It is one of those recent inexpensive imports from China (specifically, the Synta optics factory). It is mounted on a Vixen GP-DX with the aluminum tripod, with two drive motors and the Vixen SkySensor 2000-PC goto computer (ver. 2.06). This combination is not designed for such a heavy load as a 6-inch refractor, but with careful weight balancing it manages, usually.

Here is a view of the telescope, set up for solar observing. The white paper shields the back-end components from the heat of direct sunlight. Here is another view of the back-end optical train components. The Herschel wedge is from INTES (Ukraine). Here is a closeup of the video camera + narrow band filter + spacer.

Improvements I've made to the telescope and mount include:

• Obsessive attention to elimination of scattered light.
• Regreasing and realignment of the GP-DX mount head. Taking apart the mount head is not for the faint-hearted!
• Replacement of the stock focuser with a very fine 2” Burgess focuser with microfocus. Here is a closeup of the microfocus mechanism.
• Placement of sorbothane anti-vibration pads under each tripod leg.

Other equipment:

• May 3, 2006: I now have a Meade DSI Pro II CCD camera. It uses a CCD with 748×577 pixels at 8.3×8.6 micron per pixel: a Sony EXview HAD ICX429ALL interline B&W CCD. The camera is powered entirely by the USB 2.0 connection to the controlling computer. I have a 10-foot USB cable going from the camera to a four-port independently-powered USB 2.0 hub (also USB control cables for the RoboFocus and the SkySensor GOTO). A set of three 16-foot active USB extension cables connects the hub to the computer in the house. Surprisingly, this setup works very well. The innovation for the DSI II camera is that it will do automatic dark frame subtraction, provided you have dark frame calibration files (keyed by exposure time and temperature) on hand at the time of observation. A temperature sensor attached behind the CCD chip allows a close match of the appropriate dark frame calibration file to the current conditions. I did some experimenting and found that the difference between turning on and off automatic dark subtraction is huge for exposures longer than a second or two. This is not a marketing gimmick. My first images are very encouraging! Hence, this will be my primary imager from here on.
• A 2” Herschel wedge (plus additional neutral density filters) for high-resolution white-light solar observing.
• A Technical Innovations RoboFocus focuser motor.
• An AstroVid StellaCam II video camera. This is a Watec 120N CCD video camera with some extra electronics. The CCD chip is a Sony ICX418ALL with 768×494 pixels at 8.4×9.8 microns. For a while I used a frame grabber PCMCIA card from ImperX to transfer images from the camera to a laptop hard drive. The ImperX card, however, is unreasonably sensitive to electronic noise of any kind, including (and definitely not limited to) cpu fans in a laptop, RF noise from the SkySensor 2000 GOTO electronics, and a vacuum cleaner running anywhere in the house. I replaced the ImperX card with an outboard video-to-USB converter from Plextor. The Plextor gizmo works as advertised, is noise free, and feeds the laptop a full 30 frames per second at 640×480. I highly recommend it.
• Storage of the telescope in a TOW anti-tank missile case (a perfect fit!), which I obtained from a Canadian surplus supply company.
• A beautiful set of Vixen Lanthanum superwide eyepieces (40 mm, 22 mm, 13 mm, 8 mm, 5 mm, 3.5 mm).
• A 2” TeleVue 4× Powermate.
• A 2” TeleVue 2× "Big barlow".
• A large battery (21 Ah) to power everything in the field. It has a handy onboard 12VDC to 110VAC converter.