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Old 16-12-2008, 05:03 PM
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bmitchell82 (Brendan)
Newtonian power! Love it!

bmitchell82 is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Mandurah
Posts: 2,597
At the moment it seems that a EQ6 is a standard mount that makes life easy (gives you heaps of load capacity it also tracks alright). As for the OTA, well if you have a dob already, or you don't care to much for visual, then a nice apo with a reasonable FL# to give you wide field shots.

Something like a WO (Wilson optics) or the like (somebody will add in the best OTA.

As for CCD, well thats a open field, depends if you want 1 shot colour or image in RGB with a mono CCD
If you want 1 shot colour then your DSLR's seem to be the go, 350D or 400D seem to be the go, though you might want to get them modded (taking a filter out and replacing with a clear glass filter).
Other wise the DMK's have been getting some good reviews but slip a set of Astronomik R G B L filters into it for colour shots.

the other thing that you will need is some kind of Guide scope and guide CCD, I belive that Orion does this as a combo of a 80mm short tube refractor and sensitive mono CCD.

The other thing you can do and save yourself some cash is use the 8" Dob for a start put it up on the mount with rings. you might have to change the focuser to get to Prime focus or do a slight modification but don't be affraid of that. After your wallet recovers from this you can always go and get yourself a quality refractor and youll be able to take some awsome shots.

Also you will have to have a PC to run the gear, if you don't already have one Epcee's are cheap at under $400 and they are solid state memory so very durable not to mention very daym small (A5 size).

so all in a nutshell

EQ6
Good refractor (if not using your 8" dob)
Guide scope (ccd to match)
your choice of DSLR or Mono CCD
PC.

Myself, i set myself a 5k budget to get it all at once, though nowdays i went a different route, buy the 10" dob now, then later on buy the other gear if or when the eq6 comes down in price

thats my 2 bobs worth
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