Wanted EQ Goto mount

[Peachy]

Hi
Just a newbie wanting to get into astrophotography. Looking for a good mount that I could you use to guide with a scope and software.
Email or PM me.

Thanks heaps.

[iceman]

Hi Peachy - there's a load of questions I could ask that could potentially help you narrow down your selection.

Perhaps you could ask in the Equipment discussions forum and get some advice, so that you can then make an informed decision about what sort of mount you need/want.

If you'd like, I can move this thread into the discussions area. Let me know.

[[1ponders]]

Ditto to Mike. You might also want to pop out to Duckadang for the Qld Astrofest to see what brands are around (oils aint oils), capacities, even which type of imaging you might be interested in.

[Peachy]

Thanks Iceman that sounds great!

[iceman]

Ok I've moved it to Equipment Discussions :)

Now, the questions..

1. What's your budget?
2. What OTA are you putting on top of it?
3. What are you going to guide with?
4. What camera are you going to use?
5. What sort of objects were you wanting to photograph? Deep sky or planets? Widefield or up-close?

[Peachy]

I've always had an interest in astronomy and photography. I have a few friends who are also starting down this road. I saw the photos of what they are achieving with a small motor driven scope and correcting by hand. Unbelievable! I had no idea that you could achieve this level with a webcam and or digital camera.
Currently I have a Canon 300D and laptop and a fixed pier. I would like to move towards guided tracking and felt it would be best to first spend money on a fairly good mount.
Budget is always a sore point, especially with the wife. I estimate approx $800-$1000 for the mount (2nd hand?) . Does this look too low??
Once I had this set up I could experiment with my camera and wide field and gain some knowledge and save some pennies.
I was thinking from there I would purchase a small guiding scope. Not sure if an Achromatic 80mm Long Perng or 66mm semi APO William Optics would be overkill. Thinking of connecting a Webcam to this and trying some of the freeware guiding software on the net e.g GuideDog or PHD etc.
From there looking to purchase an good ED80 APO and try shooting prime focus. I'd like to try shooting deep space objects, but planetary also. This would be my goal over a good space of time to 1. Gain some experience/ knowledge and 2. Spread the cost of purchasing components.

[[1ponders]]

Hi Peachy. Must have lost this thread amongst the masses.

Do you absolutely have to have Goto? You could get a mount to do what you want at less than your limit, IF it doesn't have go to. At your limit you would find this mount http://www.myastroshop.com.au/products/details.asp?id=MAS-042 a ripper. If you must have a goto then you would be looking at something like this https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=7529 . It doesn't have the capacity of the HEQ5 though and probably not the guiding accuracy either.

Even for widefield if you are going for a reasonable length of time it would still be advisable to implement some sort of guiding. It will depend on the focal lenght of your lenses, the accuracy of your polar alignment and the periodic error of the mount how successful unguided imaging will be.

If you are going to autoguide then any refractor of similar focal length or shorter than your imaging scope will do. If you are going to manually guide than you need around 1.5x the FL. Using a 2x barlow would be enough with a shorter scope.

For a first imaging scope that is extremely good value for money, you could hardly go past the Orion/Saxon/Skywatcher ED80 (all the same scope) though the 66 Williams is reportedly a fantastic scope. If you have a look in the Icetrade forum under Telescopes you will find a WO 80 apo for sale at a great price.

If you are starting on a tight budget I'd suggest a small 60-70 mm refractor (Orion 80ED if you can afford it) on a HEQ5 mount, piggy backing your canon for widefield. If you then decide on getting a planetary camera like a ToUcam or better yet a DMK or DFK (colour) then you can get adapters that will fit canon lenses to it. With a 2x telextender a cheap second hand 80-200mm zoom lens becomes a 400mm autoguiding scope.

Anyway there are a few ideas to think about.

[netwolf]

I saw this link on another local forum very usefull information for mount selection
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/MOUNTS.HTM
AS the price comparission is in US dollars it does make it appear like the GM8 and EQ6 are closely priced, this is not the case down under.

Regards
Fahim

[g__day]

I was pretty happy with my CG5 as the sweetest entry point into guided astrophotography. Brand new it was about $1,200 from memory (the handcontroller can and has been flashed to the latest firmware from Celestron).

I ran a Celestron Carbon Fibre 9.25 XLT with a Megrez 80mm piggybacked (the Meg's are heavy so on top of the C9.25 that's alot of turning moment) - it took 17kg to balance the scopes.

But with that said it performed above my expectations when carefully aligned and protected from the elements. It is readily controllable from a PC with the free Cartes Du Ceil + ASCOM drivers, it guides well with PHD running through a ShoeString Astronomy parallel port guider. I also found it executed Goto's well - more often than not putting stars on my Canon 400D chip, and always hitting the Meg + Meade DSI's chip.

Get a second hand CG5 if a good one at the right price pops up - that will be your cheapest, functional platform. Above this (double the price) I go a EQ6 $2.3K, for $3K should get a Sphinx SXD (when they're relased for export), at $3.5 is the Losmandy GM8 plus Gemini (Goto), $5K gets you a G11 + Gemini, $6k gets you a Celestron CGE (different rather than better than a G11), $7K will see you with an Atlux or a Tak EM-200, for $10K-$11 you might get a Tak NJP or a Losmandy Titan etc...

The mount is a critical bit of your set-up!