Quote:
Originally Posted by clive milne
btw) Just another idea to throw in to the mix:
I got the impression that you were considering the purchase of a new mount (eq8?)
An alternative to that would be a second hand AP1200. There seems to be
a constant trickle of these coming up for sale as their owners upgrade to the
new 3600. You can expect to pay $6500 on up (in the U.S.)
If you made a 16" to 20" newtonian OTA and paid attention to the opto
-mechanical support and thermal management issues, you could end up with
a world class galaxy imaging rig on a relatively modest budget. If your
primary was a 20" F3.8, it would only be marginally bigger than an RC
of similar aperture. You could use the RCC1 at its native focal length.
You could also use the Keller 1.8x corrector to image at F6.8 and have
enough BFD to use AO, off axis guiding + filter wheel for either option.
regards,
~c
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Thanks Clive.
I was thinking along similar lines, but as the replacement for what I am working on now, once I had established that I could find somewhere with good enough seeing - seeing sure is the elephant in the room when living in a sea level environment.
My vague interest for the next system is the Hubble Optics hyperbolic mirror/corrector sets, which could offer a neat solution optically and thermally. Hadn't thought about a used AP1200, but it would be a good way to go. Camera would need large pixels, so it could be the 694 if it turns out to have efficient binning. Otherwise a 3200.
regards Ray