Tony Hallas’ Cosmic Imaging: Think inside the box

I often image through a large refracting telescope whose optical tube assembly is basically a long stick fastened to my mount. When the tube points toward a celestial object near the meridian (the imaginary line from north to south that passes through the overhead point), anything fastened to the end of it smashes into the pier. It is a problem common to anyone who uses such a setup. Owners of other types of scopes don’t have such trouble.