What scope to buy/build if I've got aperture fever?

[Daveskywill (David)]

Hi Yall:

I'm trying to do astrophotography and need to learn about the finer things

like even guiding and stuff / because now I've got my wonderful new Nikon D800

DSLR camera at 36 megapixels and feel I need a newer nicer bigger scope than

my older 10" Meade LX200GPS.

However I'm perplexed because I only have ~$200 to spend now. And only receive ~$700 per month on which most it takes to live on and no job.

Also I don't know if I'd like to build my own. I'd really love to build from

a bare blank the whole thing mirror and all. And one time tried with out

success building a 20" F5 Newt reflector.

PS: it would be nice too if it could all fit into a 10'X10'X6' roll-off-roof.

So please consider that.

Too I'm kind of spoiled by my LX200GPS in all its deluxe features.

Like if I were to buy a Meade Lightbridge 16" there wouldn't be

any tracking motor. And would need to put it on a ~44 degree wedge

for this latitude to point north. Any ideas if I went this way? and rig

up it's own track motor to lengthen the timed exposure my ND800 could

do on it?

PS does anyone know why my Nikon D800 doesn't make the image always

look too good, like out-of-focus look; someone once told me that with

the higher res it needed better lenses?

DaveWilliamStar@live.com

Thanks.

[Daveskywill (David)]

Cressent Moon 1st Q

Sun Spots taken with the Meade 10" F10

And Cressent with Earthshine side of Moon also through the 10"

all with the Nikon D800

[acropolite (Phil)]

David, I hate to spoil your day, but bigger isn't necessarily better for Astrophotography and you don't really have the right equipment. Moon and sun are no real problem, it's when your exposures need to be longer than a few seconds that the problems start.

It sounds like you have a standard Meade Alt Az mount, to do any serious AP you first need an Equatorial mount or if you are prepared to endure a lot of frustration you can mount your Meade on an equatorial wedge. Only when your OTA of choice is tracking equatorially can you even start to think of guiding, plus serious AP with a focal length around the same as your Meade requires extreme accuracy, think thousands of dollars not hundreds.

If you look at the highest quality images on this forum, you'll likely find that the equipment value would buy you a luxury car maybe even a small house.

Your best bet if you have reasonable lenses (read fast=expensive) for your Nikon would be to buy a Vixen Polarie or the Ioptron equivalent, that would allow you to do reasonable tracked widefield images.

[johnnyjetski (John)]

Very much agree Phil. Aperture is definately not the most important thing with AP.
Dave, the combo of your Nikon attached to your Meade LX200 can still produce very satisfying results even without a wedge. Try some planetary shots of jupiter or saturn changing your ISO to 800 or 1600 to shorten exposure times. Purchase a shutter remote too (great investment for only a few $$) to stop vibration and then experiment with exposure times.
Good start anyway Dave.

John