Astrophotography Scope

[mick pinner]

l did Steve and this led me to my search for an optimum scope, sure inches make a difference and so do seeing conditions but you will very rarely have the best conditions coupled with the large aparture scope to take advantage of the conditions.
Somewhere in the mix there must be a scope that can image deep space and planets without necessarily being the best or worst at doing either.

[Striker (Tony)]

To answer this impossible question...give us more details Mick...????

For me a nice Apo Refractor between 4" - 6" aperture for a DSLR would be the go....on the other side a 10" F4 Newt would also be on the cards again for DSLR.

[cventer]

Mick,

My vote is: 4" Apo refractor = best results with smallest amount of frustration/learning curve. Get a good one and you will keep it forever. You can find Televue genesis popping up every so often for $1300 or so. Excellent optics, flat field and f/5. 2nd Hand Takahashi FS102 is a fine instrumnet and what I use more than any of my scopes for imaging. If cost is an issue then get an ED80. Cant go wrong with one of these when learning the ropes.... As Tony says the camera you will use is an integaral part of the OTA decision. Read my article is S&S/ It explains the relationship between camera and OTA

Once you are getting decent results with a 4" refractor at an image scale of 2 - 3 arcsec per pixel then buy yourself a C925 and focal reducer and work your way up. there is so much to learn about digital imaging before you should consider higher res imaging at 1.5 arc sec per pixel or less. Im talking DSO here not planetary. Any bigger and you start to put yourself into requiring a bigger mount than the G-11. ie Titan and above which equals BIG dollars....

Or wait till the RCX400 is released in OTA form and buy the 10". Supposed to be just around the corner and buy that OTA when you have outgrown your APO which you never will as you can use it as a guidescope....

Best regards
Chris V

[JohnH]

Depending on budget - an ED80/100 or other APO plus, it serves double duty as a guidescope for:

An 8-10 inch SCT C9.25, VC200L (had to mention it!), Meade LX200 etc, possibly a Newt if the mount can take it.

Odd that nobody has advocated a MAK for planetary....

[mick pinner]

l personally would have thought that my 12" lx 200 would make a good astrophotography scope because of it's changable focal lengths 6.3, 3.3 and the flexibility that this gives, from what l've read in the replies and l appreciate the thoughts of everyone, there doesn't seem to be a scope that covers the range of planetary/deep space imaging any better that the Meade could so l suppose it's all down to the guy driving it.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Yes, the meade 12" should be able to do great things. The central obstruction is not much of an issue for digital astrophotography. It just complicates processing somewhat. Anything significantly better than the Meade would be a specialist's scope. Edit: assuming the LX200s have very good optics.