Upgrade advice

[hefyjefy]

Hi all,

Been getting some reasonable results with this setup:

Orion 80EDT Apo f/6, Canon SLI Rebel, Using BYE and PHD for acquisition, RegiStax 6 and Photoshop CS3 for processing.  Mount is Orion Sky View Pro. Just recently added a 3x Barlow lens for planets.

My question is which item to upgrade that's going to give the best bang for the buck? 

Any thoughts are most welcome!

Sample image attached.

Geoff

[kalasinman]

Since you have live view with "frame and focus" in BYE, I'd opt for a Rigel focus motor. Mine should be here next week. Jim at Scope Stuff is great.

[Uranium235]

For the EDT, I'd say the next step would be a suitable reducer - get it below f5. Your camera will thank you for it.

[hefyjefy]

Thanks for the advice these both sound like good ideas.  What would be the advice regarding either the camera or telescope?  Would I be better going for a dedicated CCD or a bigger scope?  I suspect the answer might be both :-(

[kalasinman]

At this point I think a detailed review of your goals in upgrading would be in order. Visual and imaging are two different activities that don't sleep well in the same bed.

For imaging it is a good rough guideline to spend 2x the cost of your OTA on the mount, yet your OTA seems to be near $1,000 and your mount near $400.

For observing you haven't listed your EPs, but it's likely that addition of some good EPs such as the BST Starguider series would give you a good improvement at low cost.

I believe that your mount is near capacity even for observing, so a bigger scope on that mount could be problematic.

Have heard it many times that aperture rules in visual observing. Although I mostly image, I find observing with my 6" newt and goto EQ mount to be easy and satisfying.

You seem to be at a place where the next step could provide both gains and limitations.

To continue with imaging you need a better mount, but the OTA is fine for now. For visual, a bigger scope will probably also need a better mount plus the new OTA

The elephant in the room being budget.

I'd say get the better mount, keep your 80 and buy a few good EPs (Starguider). This way you'll get benefit all around.

[malc-c]

The mount looks like a SW EQ5, and as such you really wouldn't want to put a larger OTA on the mount for imaging, it would be on the limit for visual, and not really up for serious imaging.  The consensus is that an HEQ5 / 200mm f5 OTA is the "entry" level for imaging without too much of a need to work at it.  The Sirius mount would be the next step up in terms of mounts, which looks like the HEQ5 mount.  It would also be worth checking if the Sirius mount uses the same SW protocol which would then make it compatible with EQMOD as most imaging sessions tend to be computerised and this makes things a lot more controllable

[ollypenrice]

Your image shows a little trailing up-down as presented. Are you autoguiding? Sorting out that trailing would be my priority but, if you are already guiding, this might mean no more that a little input to get the mount working better. If you're not guiding then that's your upgrade.

If you can sort out the trailing with the present mount then I'd go for monochrome CCD. The improvement over DSLR is enormous, paticularly on objects with plenty of Ha. And you can do Ha in a fair amount of moonlight.

Olly

[Zakalwe]

You don't say what it is that you are trying to achieve. So "bangs per buck" will depend on what it is that you want to do and your budget. If DSO remains your thing, then:

• Autoguiding (assuming you are not using it already)
• CCD camera. Mono brings the advantage of narrowband imaging.

If planetary is your thing then bigger aperture- either a SCT or a Mak. Plus a decent planetary camera- ZWO have launched some really interesting OSC cameras.

Again, if imaging is your thing, then don't underestimate upgrading your software and processing skills. Maybe a couple of training courses from the likes of Terry Hancock or equivalent? So much of imaging takes place after the data acquisition, so adding more kit without upgrading the processing side of things doesn't make that much sense.