Graduation from 1st scope - Feedback appreciated!

[loki78]

It's time to graduate from my first scope. An 8" dob that has been fun, but now I know a bit more (knowledge is dangerous - and expensive) and have more of an idea what I want to do, it's time to move on - and up.

I want something that is somewhat portable, good visual and imaging work and have tentatively decided on a Meade 10" LX200ACF. Was looking at the CPC11 as well but reviews on the optics being better in the meade, flatter field, less coma and being generally better for imaging have pushed me in that direction. So any info from people who have had or have this scope would be great.

Also, suggestions on getting the whole setup w/ wedge for imaging or just the OTA and sticking it on a HEQ5 or EQ6 would be great.

If you think my line of thinking is absurd and I need a slap, then i'm happy to hear that too :)

[g__day]

Be interested to hear what people think, but a 10" SCT on a EQ6 is probably doable in sheltered conditions if you want to image for long duration, prime focus shots.

For any proposed astro-photography:

1. Will you be using a focal reducer or not - what will you be targeting that suites a 10" SCT faint nebulae?
2. How will you guide (and what will this gear weight), and how will it be mounted - side by side, straddled, on axis or off axis guider?
3. What imaging and guiding cameras are you considering?

I would believe a sturdy enough mount will let you do what you want - if you set it all up well. Personally I wouldn't want anything less than an EQ6 to mount what you are considering. And I'd opt for an OAG (< $250) versus and ONAG ($1,000) over a second scope + attachments for you guide set up. Its very hard to get ride of all differential flexure required to guide at long focal lenght using a second scope.

Matthew

[Poita]

I have a 10" Meade ACF on an EQ6Pro, after upgrading the mount with a bit of TLC it works really well.
It would be too much for a HEQ5 really.
If you have an EQ6Pro, you are welcome to borrow my scope and see what you think before plonking down the cash for one.

Using Off Axis Guiding is really a must if you are not using a reducer, it is a challenging focal length.

[adman]

I would think just the OTA on an equatorial mount would be best judging from others comments about trying to wedge an alt/az.

Adam

[Poita]

Too right, avoid the wedge like the plague. I find them unwieldy and nothing but grief. Could be my innate uselessness, but I got nowhere with a wedge, and that was on an 8" scope, I would hate to try it on the 10".

[loki78]

Thanks guys. A few problems i have is i work a lot and shift work, so i barely get to go to any society meetings and therefore don't get to try out other peoples gear, so online is really the only place I can get most of the information.

I'm still tossing up a few options really. Considering still the full LX200 (or even now CPC1100 XLT) setup just for visual and some short exposure planetary stuff which from what I have read they should be fairly capable of, then later on a G11 and qualityt apo when i get more seriously into DSO imaging.

So questions of OAG/scope, what reducers etc, whilst important, come later I think (though I am keeping those questions firmly in mind also)

Then i was swayed a bit in the other direction when i read about Celestrons capabilities with hyperstar. It looks fantastic and promising, but i don't know anyone who has used it personally.

My time frame will be hopefully looking to get this in 3-5 weeks time so i am trying to gather as much information and help till then.

So basically, my questions from this now are opinions on the above scopes for use on short exposure planetary stuff and whether or not anyone has any experience with hyperstar.

A lot of stuff in all forums degenerates into 2 sides. We love product A, product B is crap. And We love product B, product A is crap. So with my limited ability to get out to events/meetings and hands on (I will be speaking to the guys at Andrews/Bintel) this is my primary source of info so thanks all for your help :)

[Bassnut]

The full LX200 would be fine for visual and short exposure planetary, integrated plonk and go, I don't think the wedge would be critical for planetary?. But would you be happy just with that long term?. Just thinking about DSO changes everything. Since you seem to be time challenged and want be portable, then an OTA (Meade or Celestron is no biggy, go by price and weight) an EQ6 or G11 or if you can stretch an MX. The mount is everything for DSO, more money=less greif and less set up time.

[strongmanmike]

Jon

If you are fit and averagily strong :shrug: I would totally recommend a 12" LX200 ACF on the wedge and with the giant field tripod as your next scope :thumbsup: A good step up in aperture while still remaining manageable - I used to set mine up from scratch several nights a week no problem and I had the whole imaging kit and caboodle. A brilliant out of the box all round performer scope and the views visually are fantastic.

I had its predecessor the 12" LX200 GPS (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132021343/original) and eventually put it under a dome (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55284140/original). I detected the horsehead neb under dark skies and managed several 15th mag galaxies, detail in the red spot of Jupiter and split a 0.6" double star! It is quite easily used for long exposure photography and gives good results for both plaentary and deep sky - heaps of accessories available too!

Here are some imaging results I got with its predecessor the 12" LX200GPS and simple piggyback autoguiding and remember the optics are now better, to handle larger chips!:

NGC 1365 (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55269925/original)

NGC 1232 (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55271790/original)

Trifid jet (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55434163/original)

M17 (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55270198/original)

There are lots of online forums and info for these kits too - great bang for your buck.

Make it easy on yourself and just order a 12" LX200 ACF (from BINTEL) and be done with it :thumbsup:

There you go no bull just 100% from experience :thumbsup:

Mike

[Octane]

Jon,

Buy a refractor. :D

H

[AG Hybrid]

I just did :D.

I went from a 6 inch newt. To a 12 inch Dob. Ive realised I wanted a Rich Field Telescope but also light enough to be a grab and go.
I converted my EQ3-2 Mount into Alt AZ mode. The 4 inch refractor I just got will mount up perfectly. The 4 incher promises 3.5 degree field of views with the ES 30mm. By contrast the 12 inch dob could only manage 1.5 degrees, and it had a huge 6.2 mm exit pupil.

I'm very excited to say the least. Sometimes a different type of view can be an observing upgrade.

Of course in regards to the original posters query, I do have the luxury of having a 12 inch telescope already so I always have that choice if I want to go deep. Perhapes a larger scope is the best approach when looking for an upgrade.

In regards to the LX200 12". The fork and OTA combo weighs 34 kilo's last check. The reason why Strongmanmike can set it up "several" times a week is.... well have you seen the pictures of him? He could bench press a Volkswagen or suplex a Cadillac.

[renormalised]

Well, I'll say it then....he's built like the proverbial brick outhouse, and then some!!!!:):P

Keck came of its mount recently....they got Mike to lift it back on!!!!:):P

They deliberately took it off again, just to watch Mike come back and put it back on for the second time:):P:P

[alocky]

Any decent motorised Dob will be fine for planetary imaging with a video, and a 16" is easy to manage singlehanded. The difference for visual observation between an 8 and a 10 is relatively minor in practice. The jump to a 16 is a much more natural step up for visual work. Even a well designed 18" can be moved around in a small car, and most of them don't need you to be climbing ladders to reach the eyepiece. Visually, aperture rules.
The main reason a 10" SCT EQ would be an upgrade from an 8" dob is if astrophotography is going to be a big part of your hobby, which it sounds like it will be. Also, as others have said, if you're planning on using the full focal length of an SCT, the mount is going to be the limiting factor for your imaging. Then the fun starts - better camera, filters, then a bigger scope, then a bigger mount, then a new camera will emerge so you can justify a bigger scope, which will need a field flattener and a bigger mount, so it's worth buying the newest gen camera with a guide chip inside...etc... until your family desert you and you come to your senses living inside the shipping carton your RCOS25" arrived in...:)
cheers,
Andrew.

[Poita]

I'm a weed and I have no trouble setting up the 10" ACF, I haven't hefted a 12" but it would be a great deal heavier and more awkward I would wager.

I have used hyperstar, and it is pretty amazing, but it has limitations of course.
If the Celestron and the Meade were the same money, I'd go with the celestron to have the option of faster/hyperstar.

Avoid the fork mount, there is no point paying for the expense if you want to do photography down the road, get the OTA and an EQ mount that can cope with it.

If you buy the OTA 2nd hand, it would leave more money to spend on the mount.

[strongmanmike]

Yes the 12" LX200 ACF is maybe a bit of an effort for some for a couple of minutes, really only the bit where you actually lift and place the forks in the wedge...but then you have a great setup :thumbsup:

Old falling apart soft Brick Dunny Mike :P

PS. I pressed the whole OTA fork assembly (with tube counter weights attached), overhead for about 8 repititions back in 2002...just as a challenge :lol:...wouldn't try that now :eyepop:...so it isn't THAT heavy

[Poita]

Take your height into account too. If you are 5'6" then it is a lot harder to get the scope up onto the mount than if your are 6'3".

[loki78]

haha well I'm over 6'1" and built like a tank so that shouldn't be too much of a concern. That said, I don't want it to be like a workout every time I want to use the thing!!!

:D

[strongmanmike]

Well then my advice stands fine then - viva la non wimpy astronomers :thumbsup: :lol:

I found the set up well worth the effort, it was a fabulous scope and did me fine for several years and was very productive.

You can just set it up in Alt az mode too for visual and even Barry Gerdes can do that - easy!

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Nearly true.....

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55621587/original

and

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55621449/original

:lol:

[g__day]

I would expect the Meade ACF optics are better than the standard Celestron ones (I use Celestron myself) and about the same quality (or maybe a bit better (?) than the Celestron HD version.

I believe Meade still has a mirror lock where Celestron don't. With Celestron you need a Feathertouch fine focuser to minimise mirror slop during fine focusing - Its really annoying until you can eliminate mirror flop / slop!

Personally I love the C9.25 carbon fibre OTA - it holds its focus during significant temperature change extremely well.

A few questions for you Jon will improve answers here:

1. How decent is the clarity and darkness of the night skies where you will be setting up?
2. Any idea what sorts of targets you will be imaging? If its small faint Dark Sky Objects (DSOs) that tells us a lot.

I'm quite suprised my Mike's advice - the 12" on a fork with a wedge and piggy backed guiding; but he would know - few of us are in the realm of experience and capability Mike has achieved. Question for you Mike - can someone new at the game set up the wedge easily and is the Meade gear that robust that piggybacked guiding won't bring differential flexures issues to ruin guiding?

I certainly don't have near your experience - I could only get guiding at 2.3 metre focal lenght working spot on when I did it off axis from the primary OTA.

Cheers all, Matt

[loki78]

Hey Matt, yeah the primary mirror lock on the meade was one of the main reasons I was headed in their direction, along with the clean optics.

EdgeHD stuff for celestron evens that out a bit, but is a hell of a lot more expensive and probably out of my price range unless i come down in size, which i didn't really want to do.

Though the fastar/hyperstar stuff for the celestrons still keeps their regular OTA's heavily in the picture. It's all going to be a trade off one way or the other I suppose.

I live in Sydney, so i'll be all over the place from locally to travelling a bit so the skies will vary a lot i would imagine.

Target wise it will be planetary stuff and the easier (and larger/brighter) DSO's. I wouldn't attempt to do the harder stuff without more specialised gear, which will come later its part of the eventual plans too :)

[Bassnut]

Yeah, I'm surprised too :P. Really Mike, a 12" portable fork/wedge Meade at 3m FL with external guide for long exposure DSO as a starter?.

Differential flexure is just the start, PE ?.

I have some experience too, sounds like the fastest way to dso imaging hell to me experienced or not, specially not :lol:

[alocky]

With that comment in mind, have a look at what you can do with a bit of aperture, without spending all that money on fancy equatorial mounts...

http://www.obsessiontelescopes.com/imaging/index.php

[renormalised]

Thought I'd recognised the building....that's the old dunny from the Keck!!!. Geez mate, you dragged it's sorry backside a long way from home:):):P:P

[strongmanmike]

Clearly our experiences were different :shrug: On the native fork, reduced to between F4 - F6.7 (Meade, Optec and Lumicon reducers) and using an 80ED guide scope piggyback plus the small chip Starlightxpress camera I was quite happy with the performance and although my imaging skills were just developing then (2004), I think the images attest to that. I generally used 4min exposures this seemed to be the sweet spot but sometimes 5min and occasionally 10min. The mount autoguided very well at these focal lengths.

All the new stuff available today plus the better optics of the ACF to cover larger chips = a very capable outfit actually, both for visual and imaging :)

Mike

[loki78]

No doubt they are achiveing fantastic results, but they won't reach the level of portability i will want from this scope. At some point in the future no doubt when I want a bit of everything, i will want a massive dob to complement my collection, just not from what I want out of this one right now.

[alocky]

Sounds like you already know what you want. For what it's worth, an 18" truss tube dob will fit in the back of a Corolla hatchback. There are also ultra-compact designs that are easier. It's ultimately your money!
Cheers.

[loki78]

I do and I don't. Still a lot to decide and still a lot of information to assimilate and considerations to make.

I'm leaning towards an EQ6 coupled with either a C11 or 10" LX200ACF OTA.

That at least makes my mount useable in the future for any other scopes I get my hands on.

So now weighing up the extra inch vs the ACF optics and cheaper price. Though from what I have read, the C11 optics are pretty decent also.

[Octane]

Go the ACF 10" on the EQ6. Sounds good. You'll need an autoguider and a guidescope. A short tube ST80 for a couple of hundred bucks will do the trick.

Or, go the off-axis guider route. Bit finicky, but, gives results.

I used to image with an LX90 8" on a wedge, with an ED80 as a guidescope. Oh, the gear slippage! It was a right royal pain.

No doubt the 10"/12" gears would be more robust than the 8".

I do miss the aperture. Perhaps, one day...

But, for now, nothing beats my FSQ-106N for a pristine, flat field that completely illuminates a 35mm sensor. A joy to use.

H

[Poita]

I have the 10" ACF, and you really do need to add a crayford focuser to it if you want great focus.
I have had the 10" and 12" side by side, and for visual on that night, there wasn't really a perceivable difference, and it won't be drastic for imaging, but the 12" will require a substantially beefier mount.
If I was going to get a mount that size, I'd pony up for a 2nd hand C14 instead and be done with it.

[g__day]

The 10" ACF vs a 11" non HD Celestron means your swapping coma and some mirror flop versus 18% - 21% more light reach. I hate mirror flop or sag - it makes guiding so tricky that piggy backing or side saddling a second scope isn't a real option. Note Mike said its possible with the Meade - which comes with a Mirror lock and a motor focuser that can be computer controlled.

Depending on your target choice will be the outcome of whether you rate light grasp over reduced coma and easier guiding. Knowing today what I know about tuning a rig to guide at long focal length - I'd guess the 10" ACF beats the C11's useability on a lot of targets for astro photography.

Be very interesting to hear from folk that had tried each OTA in this regard. Coma doesn't worry me much - there is very little to the edge of the frame on my C9.25, but mirror shift was a pain for a longer time!

Matt

[Poita]

I've had no issues with mirror flop on the 10" ACF.

Couldn't you fix the mirror flop issue with something like this
http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=8248&kw=C-14&st=2 on the celestron and add a crayford focuser to bypass the problem?

[g__day]

Meade seemed to design better mirror locks, Celestron oopsied there IMHO. Note the above mentioned stopper only sells for the C14 - never seen one on a smaller Celestron SCT. With it you till have to have a hole in the back of your OTA.

If you're set on that path - drill and thread 6 holes and insert 6 nylon bolts to lock the mirror and add maybe one or two fans as well. But that's a lot of dissamebly, machining and re-assembly and aligning before you're ready to play (plus ass you said add a cradford focuser).

Why not just say Celestron forget this - whoops and go 10" ACF with its in-built mirror lock and a motor focuser? Simpler all round!