[AstroJason (Jason)]

Thanks for the suggestion Matt but I ended up pulling the trigger on Saturday. A little silly of me I know without trying out some scopes first hand in the field. I just could not wait any longer. I had made my mind up on what equipment I wanted based on countless reviews I read, youtube video clips watched and my past experience in the hobby. Also having attended my first ASNSW AIM Meeting last week I saw photos taken with normal camera lenses which confirmed for me that I could do lots of AP without the need for a separate AP scope.

Anyway, I decided that I want to have 2 scopes. One for visual and one dedicated for AP.

So I went out to Bintel for the second week in a row. Left home at about 10am Saturday morning, spoke to the guys there for a while and decided to pull the trigger and make the purchase. Get back home, log into iceinspace… I didn’t want to look at the classies but I did anyway… low and behold, a NEQ6Pro for sale… What did I buy? A NEQ6Pro… While I was making the purchase (approx. 11am) a second hand one became available on here. AND ITS STILL FOR SALE! The timing could not have been any better or should I say worse… Not much I can do about it now. I am more than happy with the gear I have. I gotta laugh at the timing though otherwise I will go insane.

I was really surprised at the weight of the NEQ6Pro as well. In store I carried it with the counter weights and tripod. But once disassembled it’s really not that bad to carry around. I have no trouble carrying it outside with the mount still attached to the tripod (minus counter weights). I kept all the boxes for the mount as well for when going to dark sites.

But that was not the only purchase I made. I also pulled the trigger on a 10” Skywatcher collapsible GOTO Dob. From my first visit to Bintel the week earlier, I was really impressed with its compact size and weight. Having learnt my lesson from my old 12” Meade Starfinder (cardboard tube) I knew what I wanted here and made a small sacrifice with aperture for this light bucket. It is so easy to carry around I’m so stoked that I made this purchase.

So for now I am going to do lots of wide field AP with the NEQ6Pro by mounting my Canon 60D on it. I have 3 lenses that I’m going to use for this. They are my Sigma 8-16mm, Sigma 50mm f1.4 and my Canon 70-200mm IS f4L. At the moment I am leaning towards a 8” GSO Astrograph but that will be months away I think. I have seen the couple that came up for sale this week but the misses wouldn’t be impressed if I continued this spending spree. So I’ll give it a rest for now. I will push my 60D to the limit with my wide field shots and during this time I will hone my AP skills for when the day does come and I take my AP further with a scope and CCD. But having the NEQ6Pro mount now, future proofs me for a larger scope/s down the track.

Attached are some photos of my new gear.

Really gotta thank all who commented here and assisted in my decision making.

Jason