refractor advice

[graham.hobart]

Hello there, I have been struggling along now with an LX 200 8'" on a second hand wobbly equatorial wedge and I have decided to take the plunge and buy an EQ 6 go to. I will mount the Meade on that and I wish to get a refractor to start my deep sky imaging experiments. It will need to be able to be flexible enough for using the new Atik 314L+ I have my eye on, also as a guide scope when I use the Meade for planetary etc.
I have several thoughts..
(a) a Meade APO Triplet (80 or 105mm)

(b) SW BD ED 100

(c) New Bosma doublet from Andrews 9 (was on website)

(d) Long Perng 110mm F/6 doublet.
The other possibility is to get one of those 200mm Newt + EQ 6 packages which are around, but I am unsure whether that will be just duplicating the optics I already have with the Meade, and also pushing the weight limit (20kgs) on the EQ6 if I also want to mount the Lx 200.
I eventually want to mount Meade plus one of above on to heavy duty EQ 6 and have a variable set up with the ATIK, my existing DFK firewire camera and the PHD/Orion autoguiding set up.
I have read that the Atik is best with fast refractors; also that Long Perng are good quality OTA's. It is my first foray into deep sky after doing several years of very short exposures with the Meade and DFK and an old DSLR (unguided). I have been saving hard so I don't want to blow my wad on a scope which I will regret buying
please, any advice gratefully received. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/vbiis/images/smilies/thanx.gif
Warm regards
Graham.hobart

[NorthernLight]

Hi Graham,

not sure if it helps you much but I got an ED80 as I needed a guidescope and didn´t want to spend money on stuff that wouldn`t work for photography. But I am already thinking of making a very short focal lenght guider with a binolens and a plastic tube as the small field of view with the ed80 often limits the number of stars available to guide on at a reasonable exposure of the autoguider.
But you may want to ask for imaging quality in the astro-photo section of this forum.

[marki]

I can vouch for the meade 80 series 5000 as a good little scope. Focuser is a little on the nose but the optics are great. It would give you an image scale of about 2.3 arc sec/pixel with the Atik camera you have mentioned. Basic rule of thumb is if your system is fast get a chip with small pixels, if it is slow get a chip with big pixels. I don't like your chances of mounting both the meade and a newt on a EQ6 at the same time whilst trying to image.

Mark

[graham.hobart]

what about the idea of the Meade LX 200 + either the Meade APO 80mm or Long Perng scope with Atik plus motorised filter wheel, plus Orion star shoot guider and +/- orion short tube 80- all on the heavy duty EQ6?
I don't know how much the Long weighs but the Meade de-forked is 8 KGs.
Max load for EQ is 20 kgs. But I assume you want to be reasonably under that for stable guiding plus if you want to attach the DSLR body etc..
I really just want to have a crack at long exposure deep sky objects and have heard these refractors are the way to go....And sooner or later everyone goes the way of the Equatorial mount don't they!
Thanks again
Grahamhttp://www.iceinspace.com.au/vbiis/images/smilies/questionicon.gif

[graham.hobart]

what about the idea of the Meade LX 200 + either the Meade APO 80mm or Long Perng scope with Atik plus motorised filter wheel, plus Orion star shoot guider and +/- orion short tube 80- all on the heavy duty EQ6?
I don't know how much the Long weighs but the Meade de-forked is 8 KGs.
Max load for EQ is 20 kgs. But I assume you want to be reasonably under that for stable guiding plus if you want to attach the DSLR body etc..
I really just want to have a crack at long exposure deep sky objects and have heard these refractors are the way to go....And sooner or later everyone goes the way of the Equatorial mount don't they! Do they?
Thanks again
Grahamhttp://www.iceinspace.com.au/vbiis/images/smilies/questionicon.gif[/QUOTE]

[dannat]

yes graham mostly everyone goes the eq mount..the lx200 + either refractor would be fine - i like long perng, because they make a lot of WO stuff which is well made - the meade 80mm is a triplet though, & will probably be more forgiving as far as guiding goes because of the shorter f/l