Quote:
Originally Posted by Brycepj
Ok guys here is what I'm close to buying. decided to go a bit further and buy something that will lead to astro photography and also fairly portable.
I'm considering a Skywatcher Ed80 refractor on a EQ3 mount. Down the track I'll add goto capability and the bits for astro photography. Can get one for about $1300 . My question is about celestial polar alignment. As I live in melb. I know the lat. is 37' I also know that The declination angle from mag. north is 11' if I have my compass I can adjust to true North is it sufficient to set a new mount up in this manner. Does it have to be the southern celestial pole, why not North???
I know Marios mentioned a HE 5 but that pushes the budget a bit. Will the EQ3 do the the job?
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Hi cautious,
The ED 80 is a good scope for beginning astronomy but astro-photography is a different ball game altogether. There are plenty of threads here to help though.
You do need to polar align any eq mount for it to work effectively but for visual use, the alignment does not have to be anywhere near as accurate as for photography. You align on a the South Celestial Pole from Aussie. The North Celstial Pole is marked by a star called Polaris and its invisible from here. Think about a globe of the earth and extend the earths axis into space. Polaris is "above" the North Pole. We have a star called Sigma Octanis but its only visible, without a scope, under dark skies, not a hope from Melb. You can get your polar alignment more accurate by learning "drift alignment" ... and there is sure to be a thread here on that topic.
If I were you, I would forget about trying to do photography to start with, except for the moon and perhaps wide field work with just an DSLR. The moon so bright its easy through a telescope, (very short exposures), and the very low magnification of a DSLR will make tracking errors quite easy to mask. for panoramic shots. The results, in both cases, can be amazing!
Pretty much anything else celestial requires a RIGID mount and precision tracking. An eq 3 will probably struggle.
It might help if you specify your budget and what precisely are your interests in astronomy are so people can point you in the right direction.
Rom