Camera for a SN8 Meade

[I.C.D (Ian)]

G,Day ALL,
I have a question for you all .What type of camera would best suit a Meade LXD 75 SN 8"
Ian C

[renormalised (Carl)]

Depends on what you want to do with it and how much money you're willing to spend on it. However I can tell you that if you want to do long exposure pics through your scope, you will need a more stable mount than the LXD 75. Once you start to hang gear off the focuser of your scope it will impact on the balance of your scope and the capacity of your drives to handle the weight. I'd suggest going up to an EQ6 for the extra stability you will need with an 8" and gear.

However, if you just want to take happy snaps of the moon and planets, you could get away with a DMK21 and a light filter selector attached to the scope without too much worry. Or a Flea 3, a modded webcam or such. Once you start to add guidescopes and such to the setup, your mount won't handle the weight. Not unless you go about it really economically and use a finderscope and webcam as your guiding gear.

However, start adding DSLR's and such to the scope and you will have to work out the balance issues the extra weight will present.

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Carl,
What I forgot to tell everyone the SN8 is on a EQ6 mount on a pier .What I am looking for is a camera pixel ratio that will match the F4 OTA that I have for deep space photos
Ian C

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by I.C.D

Carl,
What I forgot to tell everyone the SN8 is on a EQ6 mount on a pier .What I am looking for is a camera pixel ratio that will match the F4 OTA that I have for deep space photos
Ian C

Ah....that solves a lot of problems then

Well, you want something with relatively small pixels but a good size chip. You could try a QHY10..small pixels (just over 6 microns per pixel), APS sized chip, 10MP for around $2800. Or you could go an SBIG ST8300...8.3MP, 5.4 micron pixels, $2895. Or an Atik 383L+ for $2600. They should match your scope quite well and at F4 you'll get some pretty spicky widefield shots with very good resolution.

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Thanks Carl,
That was the info I was after ,I have been looking at the QHY 8 or ATIK 314+L Sky& Space and Night Sky gave the Atik 314+L a big rap .I don't were you got your price from but the Astro Guy in Western Australia has them for $1649.00 . I am going to China later on this year I may wait and see if I can pick QHY camera from their .
Thanks Again

Ian C

[renormalised (Carl)]

That's the price for the 314L+ in all the online stores. Yeah, I read that article too. It's also the camera I want to get myself and that article only reinforced my opinions about the camera. But then again, Atik do make good cameras. A couple of the guys here have Atik cameras and they're pretty happy with them. The results they've posted have bourne this out as well.