Hey guys,
I'm tossing up changing my astro rig a bit and would love peoples thoughts.
Currently I have a purpose built observatory with -
- A WO 132mm (F7) triplet on a guided EQ6 running an ASI1600 OSC. Guiding is just in the acceptable range on this one, I guess you could say at a 14kg-15kg payload I'm more or less pushing the envelope.
- A WO 80mm (F6'ish) doublet on an EQ5 running a QHY8 Pro. I don't use this one too often due to having to swap connections on the computer which is a pain.....and quality of the other scope means I prefer to use that.
I would love to get both scopes running on the same mount but there is no way I could add an additional 5kg-6kg (the 80mm setup) to the already loaded EQ6 and expect anything near reasonable guiding.
Thrown in the mix is the fact I've recently pulled the trigger on a LRGB/Narrowband setup so with the NB I'll be needing to do some longer exposures.....meaning greater accuracy will be needed for guiding if I want to produce the quality of picture I am hoping for.
My thought - sell off both the EQ6 and EQ5 and then grab myself an EQ8 head on which I can then mount both scopes. The 132mm will run the mono camera and the 80mm can run the OSC. I can then chose to image with either or both depending on what I'm looking to do.
From what I read EQ8's have a very low PE and guiding figures come in close to mounts worth twice the money (0.2-0.3 is a quoted figure I see quite often). I'd expect guiding would also be on the better side of quoted figures due to the fact I'd be running the thing with only about half it's rated imaging capacity.
So....EQ8 owners, what are your thoughts on the mount?
Or....anyone else, I'd love to hear what you'd do in my situation.
