Here I'll be describing the current equipment that I use. Historically the observatory has been home to an AstroSystems 8 inch Newtonian, a 14 inch Beacon Hill open frame Newonian and a Meade 12 inch LX200 Classic Schmidt Cassegrain.
The equipment used previously is all described on the old version of Cymbeline Observatory under Equipment/Current and Equipment/Old Stuff. You can also access these pages from the Archive menu above.
When I sold the structure and dome of Cymbeline Observatory and the LX200, I retained the floor for mounting the 2.2m Pulsar and also the pier that I used for the scope.
There was no reason to part with the pier because I'd be able to use it for whatever came next. It was drilled and tapped to be able to take an equatorial wedge for fitting of a Meade Schmidt Cassegrain or similar and could be readily modified to accept any other type of mount, and I have the means to drill and tap for other mounting patterns.
So i had a choice to make. I had also kept the 100mm Avian Starseeker refractor that i'd been using for deep sky imaging, so any new mount that I bought would need to accept that at a weight of 4.5 kg.
The mount would definitely need to be a GoTo mount, and also the refractor would not have a long enough focal length to give a good image scale for imaging the planets, so I'd also need another telescope.
At this point, cost comes into the equation, i needed to get a good balance between cost and utility. Something that would enable me to image planets, image deep sky, do visual work (which is the initial intention anyway, the imaging comes later) and not be too expensive.
Initially I looked at harmonic mounts, but to get one with a decent load capacity was proving to be expensive, or very expensive depending on the size of the scope. If I'd retained the 12 inch Meade I would need something that could carry about 40kg, so selling it meant I could go for something lighter.
A good peruse of First Light Optics website was my first choice. To cut a long story short in the end I decided on ...
The iOptron CEM40 mount, which has a load capacity of 18 kg, and a StellaLyra 8" f/8 M-LRS Ritchey-Chrétien Telescope OTA which weighs in at just over 11kg, which the mount should handle vey well.
Once I have the observatory installed fully (it'll need electrics, lights and networks doing) then I'll take photos of the telescopes mounted and post those on the Equipment/Telescopes page.