New telescope advice

[Ponch]

Hi

I am looking at selling my Meade 10" LX50 soon but would like some advice on a new scope

I am open to suggestions but am looking at the CGEM 8000 as a replacement.

I want to be able to do astrophotography with a Canon EOS 450D.

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


Ponch

[gregbradley]

It depends on what type of image you want to take. Widerfield is easier to do and lots of objects to image. Closeups like small galaxies require longer focal length scopes and higher end equipment as it requrie great accuracy from the mount.

Generally a wide field refractor is a good place to start.

A lot use the EQ6 mount and seem to get good results with it. I believe there are upgrades you can do to improve it as well.

Budget of course comes into it heavily.

But there are a large number of good quality scopes theses days around the 100mm aperture mark with ED glass lenses.

Orion, Astrotech, Stellarvue, Williams Optics, various branded Chinese orginated scopes. There is a carbon fibre 80mm triplet going now quite cheaply. So many in this band now.

It'll take you a while to research them all. Many here on this site have one of these types of scopes.

You will need an autoguider as well to take astrophotos.

Greg.