Buying My First 'Scope

[Nifty]

HI all,
In a little while I will be in the position to be able to buy my first scope. After a lot of anguish and cogitation I will probably buy a Meade LX200 8".
You may think that is a big leap for a beginner but here's the catch. I am 68 and my use by date is closer than I would like. I can't spend decades buying different 'scopes.
The question is, have I made the best choice? Should I perhaps get a big fat Newtonian on a GEM. One of the reasons for getting the LX200 is ease of setting up: no searching for sigma Octans. I realise that I will have to use more elaborate setting-up to partake in astrophotography; a wedge perhaps?
Other questions I have are: Has anyone had experience with the Imaging Source and the Gstar EX cameras? Which is better, if that is a fair question.
The ToUcam seems to be the webcam of choice. Are there other/better/newer cameras around or is it still the best?
Incidentally, where do you buy them?

Thats all for now.
I hope I have fun
Nifty

[mrsnipey]

Hi Nifty.
Never too old to start.
I would caution against a Newt on a GEM as you have to get into some funky positions occasionally to be able to look through the eyepiece.
My knees and back aren't what they used to be so for me it's quite awkward.
Dob mounts are much easier on the back and knees for Newts.

I would stick with the lx or go the dob.

[renormalised]

Hey Nifty, good to hear from you. You're never too old to start, just as snipey said. And don't think you'll be buying scopes for decades, once you catch the bug you'll be looking at new scopes nearly every time you go online:)

An 8" LX200 would be a good scope to start with, and you don't necessarily need a wedge to do astrophotography. If you want to do some astro piccies, get yourself a good CCD camera, such as a Meade DSI II Pro or the normal version of the camera (DSI II, if you don't want to fiddle with filters) and a guidescope for your main scope. However, just starting out as you are, work your way upto getting to the piccie stage by learning about the sky and doing plenty of visual obs. Once you get a feel for your scope and the sky in general, you can then move on and try more advanced things. As they say, you have to crawl before you can walk:)

The most important thing with a new scope is that you enjoy using it. If you can handle moving it around and setting it up, then that's good. You have to be comfortable with your scope and enjoy operating all it's bits and pieces. I think the 8" SC will suit you well....it has good light gathering ability, is portable and will grow with you as you get experience.

[erick]

Hi Nifty,

How are you skies at Yea? Fairly dark I would think. A bit of distant sky glow from Melbourne or are you over the mountains? I think you would get plenty of great observing with an 8" scope then.

Eric :)

[Jeff]

Welcome Nifty.

I know that Bintel sell a range of astrophotography gear (knowledgable guys, good prices & service): https://www.bintelshop.com.au

Some other options (assuming you know the product you're looking for) are to simply buy directly from O/S manufacturers/suppliers, or purchase 2nd hand from folks who are trading up (eg. eBay, IceInSpace classifides).

I'm expect you'll have some fun, especially from your excellent location.

[ving]

g'day niffty :)

yeah that'd be a fine starter. 8" aint too hard to lug around either tho you'd have to pull it apart (of course). if kyou want to see what a g-star will do look for some of jjjnettie's images, she uses one :)

[Karls48]

Hi Nifty and welcome. I can recommend GStar for someone who is just starting Astrophotography. It is very easy to use, you will get live view (with 2.5 seconds delay on maximum sensitivity) and you will see 3 magnitudes deeper with it then you would see with eyepiece. It also got ½” CCD chip that gives you much wider field of view then web cameras with their ¼” chip. I got two GStars, one is fixed in meteor capture setup and other I use for imagining. I have also webcam and Meade DSI Pro but use GStar most of the time. I would suggest to get 0.63 focal reducer for your LX200 because at 2000mm focal length you may find field of view too narrow and tracking difficult. You can add wedge later on if the imagining game really bites you.
Have look on http://www.myastroshop.com.au (http://www.myastroshop.com.au/) to see what can be achieved with this camera, but don’t expect to produce same quality images straight away.

[Nifty]

Thanks Fellas,
You have been very helpful and have confirmed some ideas I have. The sky glow from Melbourne is variable Erik. Sometimes almost nonexistant: other times it looks like a fire 10k down the road! Depends on the weather. I see you use a Logitech webcam. Is that one of the latest ones? Some of the new ones have impressive specs but I wonder if they are OK for astronomy.
OK on the Gstar, Karl48. I have seen some of Steve Quirk's images and am impressed. What I aim to do is have the scope setup outside about 10 metres from a back room of the house and do my observing remotely in the colder months. I have no desire to freeze my bits off! Of course in the warmer months it's different.
That's all for now. I'll keep reading the forum to glean ideas and information. I'm looking at ways to remote control the scopes functions.

Cheer
Good seeing
Nev

[erick]

Sounds like you have fairly dark skies most of the time then. Lucky!



I bought it back in mid 2007. I suspect it has been superceded now. I knew the Toucam was the best, but wanted whatever I could buy in the computer shop. The 4000 was available and I'd read it was a CCD device and not too far behind the Toucam in astro performance.

I haven't put enough time into it. I have been using the Logitech software and it doesn't give me control of the gain, a major problem. I've downloaded K3CCD software, but haven't installed and played with it yet.

All I have is some moon in fairly bright evening sky: - http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=25992