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Originally Posted by cazza132
Just checked out your gallery - my god you have some amazing work! I am floored! Might have to drink some more beer I think! Your M42 / M43 and the Triffid nebulae are standouts for me. I'm looking into getting a Astrophotography scope and it seems that the fast Newtonians are the go. And your running an 8" f5 one, autoguided via the finderscope? Really good results mate. Do you have any recommendations for a good fast scope that's portable? A good EQ mount also as I would also piggyback a camera off the side of the scope for the wide field stuff. Say in the 1000mm FL range? Will the image circle cover a full frame DSLR sensor? I guess that the secondary mirror would have a part to play in that.
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Thanks for the kind words of encouragement Troy.
For starting out in deep space astrophotography most people recommend something like an ED80 on an EQ6 mount. You'll need a guidescope and 2nd guide camera of some sort too. You'd be lucky to get going for under $2000, although 2nd hand on Ice can be a real boon. Not everyone that buys quality gear finds they like swearing at a laptop in 5 degree temps at 2am in the morning
An 8" Newt at F5 or F4 is a bit cheaper, collects a lot more light and has better resolution, but you have to work a bit harder with guiding because of the slightly longer focal length, balance a bit more awkward, you'll need something like an MPCC coma correcter ideally, and usually have to move main mirror or cut down adaptors to get your camera's focal plane in close enough to reach focus. I had previous Newt experience and felt safer starting out that way, but have to confess going over to the refractor dark side recently. Vignetting is an issue in most standard Newt's not designed for imaging, so you end up working harder at processing (unless you upgrade mirror, secondary vanes, etc).
LOTS to read about all these issues if you search on Ice though. Beware! Addictive!!!
