Buying new scope - advice?

[allsmiles (Ahmad)]

Hi all,

After getting familiar with the night sky with an 8" dob i felt like i wanted something more. Maybe something that would later lead to astropgotgraphy.

Anyway i sold my 8" skywatcher which now gives me a budget of $1000 (i'm a student so can't go much further)

Andrews is selling a 200mm skywatcher on an eq5 with dual axis motors for $950. Is this the best-buy for my price range and would it be more stable than my previous dob?

I can easily get 10" dob and (if im still in luck) a 12" GSO dob for under $1000. would these be better?

Any help would be much appreciated guys...

[dannat (Daniel)]

is the 200mm a newtonian? or cassegrain?

what is the f/ratio?

the eq5 is ok, nut i think would not cope with 200mm & guidescope - so you would be limited to short exposures, maybe 30sec to 1 minute

[allsmiles (Ahmad)]

its an f5 newtonian

so this scope wouldn't be good for astrophotgraphy down the track?

im still clueless with regards to astrophotgraphy so why the need for a guidescope (i'm guessing u mean a refractor on top right?). isnt a normal finderscope enough?

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

Hello

I'm a beginner who just spent the last six months banging my head against the wall trying to take photos with an 8" newt. Newts are good for photography and at F5 you get a good amount of light "BUT" there are some very hard things to learn along the way such as collimating the 2 mirrors, polar alignment, drift alignment, and guiding. Now that i am just starting to take ok photos i wish i had started with something smaller like an ED80. The smaller refractor scopes are easier to get started on and the mount to hold it will be cheaper, i paid $1500 for an heq5 to hold my newt. Please don't take my advice as gospel, as i said I'm a noob. Good luck and have fun.

[allsmiles (Ahmad)]

thanks Jason will consider your advice when buying but i'm still thinking observational for like the next year. i guess this will also help me get used to polar alignment, drift alignment etc..

but yeah maybe switch to the ed80 on the same eq5 mount a year or so down the track.

the eq5 should be able to hold an ed80 in an A.photography setup right guys?

[Alchemy (Clive)]

the ed80 is a good place to start imaging, a guidescope is another scope which tracks while you image with the other. be warned it gets expensive to do it well.... i mean REALLY expensive.

you will need a mount, 2 scopes (you could use off axis guider and need only one scott - tornado33- does) camera , guide camera , computer. then photoshop or similar.

i suggest you trawl through the images in the deep sky section, most people list what they use so it will give you an idea. some do indeed use a heq5 not sure which version of it though. possibly the most popular is the eq6. then it goes to big dollars (GM11 and others).

[dannat (Daniel)]

Ahmad -the 8" newt can be used for photography & visual - though when taking photos with a f5 newt you will get something called coma - an optcal aberration which distorts some stars off axis.. you can buy a coma corrector but it costs >200.
The ed80 will be easier to take photos with, du to the shorter f/l - mount errors will not be as apparent and you will not have to align as precisely.

I have a 6" newt for visual & photos - though it is probably not great at either - but i did not want the expense of buying different combinations.
For photography i am concentrating on prime lenses of 135 & 200mm.

I think the 8" will be ok - but the photography side will take a lot of patience - and you can update in the future (mount first)

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

Hello again

The only other thing to consider is that the eq5 mount will not connect through the computer for guiding later. I think there is an upgrade synscan controller available but do check as it becomes important later. the cheapest mount i know of for computer control and guiding is the meade LX, but they have a poor reputation. The cheapest i could find was the heq5 pro. And yes any scope can be mounted to any mount.

jas

[allsmiles (Ahmad)]

thanks guys

looks like i'll stick to observational until i finish studying lol...astrophotgraphy is too expensive if its to be done properly

but one more question. are equatorial mounts generally more stable than dobs at high power esp. considering the eq5 will have motor drives.