Hows this for an equipment idea?

[sejanus]

Anyone see any holes in this idea?

1) Get the CGEM mount with the C11. The C11 will be for visual use, and I intend to piggyback a dslr onto it to do widefield astrophotography with my existing slr + lenses (no shortage of those in my house). I'm thinking that the load of the C11 + a slr will be ok on this mount for widefield photography.

2) A little later down the track when/if I want to shoot through the telescope itself, still just keep the C11 for visual but also buy one of the GSO RC scopes, the 6" or 8" one to keep the load on the mount relatively low.

Hows this sound? Am I missing anything obvious?

cheers

[sheeny]

The most obvious thing you might be missing is the value of the CGEM. Mechanically it is equivalent to an EQ6, but with spruced up looks and controls. However, if you use EQMOD with an EQ6 you'll have a superior performing mount for significantly less money.

Al.

[sejanus]

The CGEM has a really nice polar alignment assist feature, where you can use any bright star and it tells you how far off the mount is. This would be useful as I can't get a clear view of the octans. Does eqmod have a equivalent feature?

[Manav]

Guidescope + autoguider? By the way you can use software tools to perform the drift alignment.

[OzRob]

The software makes alignment quuick, accurate and painless. I can get a fairly accurate alignment in about 15 to 20 minutes. You can try Alignamaster (http://www.alignmaster.de/) or PEMPro (http://www.ccdware.com/products/pempro/). Both use different techniques. Alignmaster is by far the cheapest of the two but PEMPro is easier to use (you do not need to look through the scope but you do need a camera) and also help reduce your periodic error. Both have trials available.

[sejanus]

thats really interesting. thanks Rob, reading up on it now.

[sejanus]

I've swapped the idea around now. Going to get the refractor first and a SCT later (tempted to import a edgehd from the states)

Now the question is which refractor. So many choices.

Leaning towards eq6 now, the 3rd party software for it look very trick - thanks rob.