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Old 18-05-2021, 02:22 PM
Dave882 (David)
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Join Date: Nov 2020
Location: PADSTOW
Posts: 2,109
Hi Simon
I think the answer to your questions may be based on what direction you want to head in your astrophotography.

If you still love looking through an eyepiece and just want to take some photos home with you afterwoods to keep / show friends/family then your current alt-az setup is wonderful. Using a sensitive camera and stacking 10-30sec images you can achieve some ok live images that can be processed later. But they will never be of the quality of some of the amazing detailed work you see on these forums that do require longer exposures and multiple nights of narrow-band precision.

I'm doing exactly this with my CPC800 in alt-az / asi294/asiair pro and EAA livestacking generally approx 160x 10sec subs (20min integration) at either f6.3 or f4 (double stacked reducers). I just love how quick it is to setup and start imaging, or swap between imaging and visual. No guiding. No PA.

You ask if it will be acceptable images - that depends! They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll add a couple below that are extremely novice and some light adjustments on photoshop express (quality reduced for upload). Note the eggy/bloated stars and coma/vignetting in the corners so not everyone would be pleased with this as a final result- as I say it depends on what you're after.

You can add the wedge but the cost and extra setup time required may be a problem and I still reckon you won't get the results that a dedicated imaging rig will bring. Sorry I'm not speaking from experience here though.

If you really want to go down the dedicated imaging route, I agree with the previous response that a smaller aperture / short fl refractor or imaging reflector will be much more suited and with a half decent eq mount you may not be spending much more if you can pick something up 2nd hand. I've had a few goes down this path too, but since I still love the visual / EAA stuff the CPC keeps getting the most use!
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