Astrograph help

[tnorthy92]

Hey all. Realised when I came on holiday the skies are much clearer in Cornwall, so I have renewed my interest to actually own a lovely jubbly frac.

Some advice could be appreciated though!

Budget ~£600

I already have an eq3-motorised (best I can afford)

Preferably, I'd like to get things like Orion, Pleiades, and the Moon. 

Last time I was looking I was quite taken with the WO ZS71, but I don't know if there's been any developments in the last two years. A quick Google pulls up fairly old sites so that was of little use. 

Portability would be a factor, since it'd all be being lugged around by hand.

Would be hooking up a DSLR to it for purposes of photos though observations would be done too! 

Cheers :-)

[Spoon]

I've just picked up a second hand WO GT81 today. What about an ED80?

[tnorthy92]

That would certainly be in contention, I could do with a little advice on the relative merits of the scopes though. Just looking on the Altair Astro site now, Starwave 80ED + flatterer and EOS adaptor for 499 is certainly tempting

[Alien 13]

If you plan to do any AP with the EQ3-2  I would stick to sub 400mm focal lengths either with a scope or camera lens, you will be limited to subs of around 90s so a fast F ratio is benificial.

Combining AP and visual with the same scope will be limited but I can certainly do lunar and the larger objects with my kit. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/245323-zs71-lunar/

Alan

P.S this is the sort of image scale the ZS71 gives on the Orion nebula

[ollypenrice]

Alien 13 has it right. The FL must be kept short with your mount and a fast F ratio will get more light in the time you have available without trailing.  This argues strongly against the excellent ED80 for once. The obvious way to find a short FL and fast F ratio would be to look amongst the prime lenses second hand. Or even new if you buy carefully. I used a Samyang 85 on a CCD camera to get this result (6 panel mosaic.) http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/i-gfQmRVJ/0/X3/ORION%202014%20reprocessWEB-X3.jpg You can do a lot with 200mm as well. I don't think I'd go much longer in your case.

Olly

[tnorthy92]

Wow that's amazing Olly, and those lunar shots are lovely too. Looks like it's zs71 then, I do have a 200mm prime somewhere but of unknown age, Have to see what I can do with that as well. One last question, is it the WO flattener 6 I'd need for this scope?

[Alien 13]

My scope has the FF/FR 6 but not sure if it has changed now, the WO scopes recently had a price hike so there may be better bargains out there for one of the "clones".

I would however start off with a 200mm or similar lens even if it means buying one of the m42 pentax/smc/takumar lenses which come up on e-bay quite frequently.

Alan

[tnorthy92]

And there are no other refractor of similar speed and cost. What about the ts quad?

[Alien 13]

The only scope I know of is the Altair Astro Starwave 70 ED but I am sure there must be others, when I bought my ZS71 it was much cheaper than it is now.

There is a review of the Altair Astro Starwave 70 ED here https://www.altairastro.com/public/reviews/SkyatNight_104_Starwave70ed_review.pdf but I am sure there are some owners on this forum and there have been a few threads too.

Alan

[tnorthy92]

Oooh! Seems a fairly similar review to the ZS71 Sky at Night gave. Nice scope, with some colour issues but not horrific. That makes it so much harder now. 

[tnorthy92]

And NOW I've seen the lightwave 72. This is so hard.