[Blake (B)]

Originally Posted by Lee

A full size DSLR sensor at the focal length of these bad boys will give you a field of about 45'x30'....
Andromeda - no way....
Orion - will squeeze in the central areas....

These scopes will just frustrate you in imaging as a beginner (or even an old hand!) - think more along the lines of a refractor or maybe even a fast newtonian - a refractor like an ED80 is a great imaging scope, and you'll always find a use for it even once you've moved on to a C14 or such....

Originally Posted by Lee

I'd agree with that newt... I use one now - a nice scope, the focuser is 'OK', but the scope is greatly improved with a moonlite.... Can't vouch for it visually though....

I thought that might be the case lol. It would be good for planets though I'd imagine haha and visual as Steffen mentioned. You really can't get away with one instrument to cover dso's and planets can you.

When you say you can't vouch for the f/4 newt visually, is that because you don't think it's very good visually? Or you just don't/haven't ever used it visually?

Originally Posted by Steffen

For visual those Maks will be great, but for imaging you'll likely want a focal reducer.

Cheers
Steffen.

What sort of focal reducer would you recommend? How much faster could you make the scope? And would a focal reducer introduce any other issues?

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

ED80 would make a great finder scope for a C14

I agree with you there haha. I can see it being a good investment long term. I mean you cant really go wrong with an apo refractor as far as I know. I think it's just the fact that it's not much of an aperture improvement over my 60mm cheapo refractor that's making me hesitant. After all there's so much emphasis put on the fact that aperture is king, but yet you still read opinions from people who say they've had better views through an 80mm apo refractor than through an 8 inch sct or something similar. Has anyone else experienced this also?

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

Great mount choice.

Add an 8" F4 newt eg: http://www.bintel.com.au/Telescopes/...oductview.aspx

to give sweet visual use and and easy entry into astro photography with a DSLR, then add on the 50mm orion autoguider.

Add a dark sky and enjoy...

I've heard a lot of good things about the SkyWatcher mounts and how important the mount is, so I figure I'd go with well liked mount with a lot of fans.

Have you tried the f/4 newt before? I did read something a while back about them when they caught my attention, but for some reason, I can't quite remember what the reason was, but I was a bit discouraged from the scopes. Might have just been someones personal opinion. Perhaps the fact that the fast focal ratio meant that it wasn't great for planets.

I'm guessing I will need some sort of serious coma correction for such a fast scope? And I imagine collimation may be difficult as well?

Also, I'm not the biggest fan of massive diffraction spikes in images, which is part of the reason the maks were attractive, but I've come across the curved and sine wave shaped spider vanes that are supposed to eliminate diffraction spikes. I can't find any real images comparing the different shape vanes though. Has anyone tried the curved vanes?


Thanks for all the replies!