(Spelling mistake in the title: “If money was NO object…”
I’m curious what people’s dream rigs would be. Any why?
What specifically about your rig make its ideal for what you wanna shoot?
I’m not quite at the point where I can confidently build a dream rig myself without lots of research and suggestions so i think it’ll be fun to hear from the experts :)
At this point, if i were an eccentric rich guy, i would buy 100 seestars, arrange them in a grid and then shoot the same object.
I guess for me it with be a well mounted, relatively fast, 12 to 16 inch Newtonian in a small observatory. This would be wonderful for deep sky in various configurations and would be large enough in aperture to really deliver on the Moon and Planets.
If money was truly no object, I would station a range of telescopes at two locations:
A Northern hemisphere set at some place like the canary islands
A southern hemisphere rig in Chile
Each would be populated with a range of scopes from widefield refractors to 24” CDK. They would all have Chroma mono filters and each would be mounted with the largest sensor they could support. Each would be configured with automated tilt correcting devices. All mounts would be premium (10 Micron, AP etc.). I would also have a superfast workstation, probably running Linux that could crunch the data sent very quickly. I might also hire someone (one at each location) to manage these scopes and make such mechanical corrections as are necessary. I’d also travel to these places and enjoy the dark skies.
I told my wife a while back that if we hit the lottery, we were moving to darker skies, and I was going to get a William Optics Pleiades 181 Septuplet APO Refractor with a mount and camera to match it.
📷 IMG_3882.jpeg
a little 39m ….
For one fortunate Ohioan, it wasn’t a hypothetical question:
https://moellerobservatory.org/
Clear Skies,
Phil
Phil Creed · Apr 16, 2026, 08:36 PM
For one fortunate Ohioan, it wasn’t a hypothetical question:
https://moellerobservatory.org/Clear Skies,
Phil
Holy smokes! What a sexy setup that is….
My dream astronomy rig’s or setup’s would be an triple monochrome 10-12 inch Newtonian, Rasa 8 or 11 inch, and a triple Takahashi fsq 106 reduced to f 3.6. I could get super strong RGB data in one night and narrowband would be a breeze with all of these telescope setups. Each system to me has its own benefits. Heck with a triple rasa 8 or 11 system I bet I could capture the andromeda oii arc in as little as 2-3 full clear nights. I live in Florida where I live I really don’t get clear nights in summer that often, The triple rasa could probably give me a good color image or a very nice narrowband image on the rare chances I would get to image. The newts would be killer with galaxy photography, although you would probably have to align the spider veins to not have strange looking stars. Finally, The triple Takahashi fsq 106s I would have just for the love of the game. I don’t know if I would ship my telescopes to a remote observatory in the mountains. I really like to push the envelope where i’m at just to see whats possible.
Hubble.
Or if it has to be ground-based for some reason, something like an ASA UWF1000.
Phil Creed · Apr 16, 2026, 08:36 PM
For one fortunate Ohioan, it wasn’t a hypothetical question:
https://moellerobservatory.org/Clear Skies,
Phil
That TEC250 tho!
Jean-David Gadina · Apr 16, 2026 at 09:43 PM
Hubble.
Or if it has to be ground-based for some reason, something like an ASA UWF1000.
More realistically, a Celestron C11 or C14 on a CGX-L mount and a William Optics Ultra-Cat 131 on a ZWO harmonic mount.
You could literally spend any amount telescope/imaging system. Saying money is no object would unlock 7 figures and up.
And even with no spending limit.. my answer would be… it depends on what I want to do at that moment :)
If money wasnt an issue - well, i’d go for some remote telescope combination of different focal lengths, located in L2. Or should i say L1? hmmm… 🫠
I’ve got an ASA600 in Chile so I’ve already got my dream system! BUT…if I were to go unlimited, I’d go bigger. A 1.5-m ASA with an ASA UWF600 on the side would take it to the next level. It would be cool to have scopes in both hemispheres but you have to be careful what you wish for. Maintaining all that stuff in far flung locations can be challenging so I’d probably just stick with my current location in Chile. I love the people, the location, the conditions, and the service that I get at Obstech. They are simply as good as it gets!
- John
I would try to make money an object if I could spend like that.
Plus one for @John Hayes response. Seeing conditions, service and people at Obstech are all simply wonderful. I have the same ASA600 scope and an ASA mount to accompany it, and it will be years, if ever, before I am worthy of the system.
A backyard observatory.
Phil Creed · Apr 16, 2026, 08:36 PM
For one fortunate Ohioan, it wasn’t a hypothetical question:
https://moellerobservatory.org/
Nice but a big scope like that is a waste with the seeing in that part of the country. I would have stuck with smaller stuff locally and put the long focal length out west and/or in Chile…
I would go for a fast scope with decent focal length in a dark site with good seeing. Think dual Planewave Delta Rho 500 scopes or maybe even three or four in the same location (see location above).
But I will have to be happy with my slowed CDK 14 albeit at a dark site with good seeing. 🙂
If I had the money for a dream rig? A 1.5m PlaneWave RC and turn it over to high school and 2-year college students to see the amazing science they could get out of it using a variety of instrument configurations it could accommodate. If I managed to do that, it would follow that I would also be independently wealthy enough to spend time programming control and scheduling systems for it.
If money was seriously not an object, then I would have a 500-600mm RC hitch a ride on a space x rocket and place in a low earth orbit just for pretty pictures.