Shimrod

There is a review of the R6 in this month's Sky at Night Magazine. The review is by Chris Grimmer - the longest exposures in the review images appear to be 60s.

The advantage of spotting scopes over astro scopes is they are designed for moving around and surviving a few bumps on walks etc and generally have some level of waterproofing against inclement weather. I don't yet own a spotting scope but have been looking at them recently - I often go to nature reserves (I'm a WWT member) but only use binoculars at the moment. The Regal M2 has good reviews and seems to feature quite often in the various 'top 10' type articles as a strong contender in it's price bracket. Larger apertures give better low light performance so can extend the use into early evening, but generally at the cost of a longer 'close focus' distance and some FOV. Weight differences between 65mm and 80mm don't seem to be signficant when you consider you will be carrying a tripod as well. The one caution I would give about the Helios Fieldmaster is that I could not find any reviews on a website I would be willing to click on! Surprising for a scope that has been around at least 8 years

I only paid £128 for mine although they dropped to £121 on 8th June - Amazon price history I don't understand Amazon's pricing strategy but I'm not complaining....

If you don't need the mains power socket conversion, then you might want to consider a tracer battery or the Celestron Power Tank Pro (£207 at picstop). These are Lithium Iron Phosphate, are lighter and safer than standard Lithium batteries and will also take more charges. The Celestron Pro pack has 12v lighter output, 2 USB out and a 2.1mm 12v output. I use mine with a mount, dew band and ASI533. I haven't run out of power in a session, but I don't think I have managed more than 4 hours since I got the battery with the poor weather over the last year. When finishing, the battery has still had plenty of power left (it uses 4 led to indicate remaining level). I know Tracer batteries are quite popular on here, so someone may pop along with some specific recommendations and adapters to provide the power ports that you need - the Tracer battery comes with a 12v lighter socket as standard.

Amazon managed to send my binoculars to the wrong end of the country, but I have now received them. I will hopefully get a chance to compare to the Helios over the weekend.

Sold for £802 (£1154 with buyer's pemium and VAT) - wonder if it was someone from here again?

My assumption here is that for Aurora and milky way widefield the shots will most likely be untracked - I could be mistaken though. If I was replacing my camera now I would go with the 'R' series - however I am waiting for the 7d equivalent as the R5 is more than I would be willing to spend. Of course this is Skipper Billy's money we're spending which is why I suggested Amazon with their excellent returns policy so he could buy and try. There are a few longer exposure shots on astrobin taken with an R5. I've dropped the links below. astrobin1 astrobin2 - milkyway Astrobin3 - orion nebula

The other way of looking at it is to choose the camera that is the best fit for your main use - if it is predominantly going to be used for daytime photography, is the occasional AP usage going to be good enough?

My understanding of the Sony issue is that it is a hot pixel removal process rather than noise reduction which is removing stars.

A quick search seems to indicate it is not a problem in the real world - noise reduction is applied mostly on short exposures and up to ISO 640. I 've no experience of the 'R' series, but these user reviews for astro seem don't seem to flag any issues. dpreview petapixel Edit: It's only £30 more on Amazon that the cheapest available, so why not buy, try and return under distance selling regulations if you are not happy. You might have to pay return postage but it avoids an expensive mistake.

I posted one of these back in march and one of our members got a bargain (and available!) Skywatcher 80ed. The John Pye auction website has a Nexstar 8SE available with 1 day left on bidding and a current bid price of £170. Note that you need to multiply the bid price by 1.44 to allow for VAT and buyer's premium that you will have to pay and while you can bid online, you must be able to collect from the Nottingham sale room. The auction is customer returns and ex-display items, and while it shows a sealed box that would be no guarantee of the state of the telescope. Public viewing was today between 9-12 so you would be buying blind if you bid, and it is an auction so your rights are limited. This could be a bargain or a nightmare if you are prepared to bid, but I would expect this to sell for significantly under retail price given it is a collection only auction so that may offset any replacements or repairs that may be required. I have bought a few smaller items from their online auctions with mixed success. John Pye Auction

I don't - I have a pair of Helios Stellar II which cost the same as the Skymaster 20x80 should have done, so it will be interesting to see a side by side comparison. I would expect the more expensive binoculars to demonstrate less CA. and perhaps a bit of extra sharpness. It's worth checking out the reviews on the Binocularsky website if you can not done so.

At this price I have given in and ordered some as well - I won't have to share mine with Mrs Shimrod any more 😀

Glad it worked out for you, definitely a good deal at the price. With all the cloud and poor weather we've had over the last 12 months my Helios 20x80 have seen a lot more action than any telescope - great for those 20minute gap in the clouds sessions.

As a consumer you don't have the option of not paying VAT, so surely a discount of 30% is just that. I think items like optics and manual mounts tend to reach a base price by a certain age and stay there - this is probably the underpin of the '2/3rd rules' and does mean you can buy and sell on the used market and lose very little money. Electronics on the other hand do go out of date and can fail, so electronic based items will continue to decrease in price as they age as the risk of something failing increases.

This is an interesting find. In another thread, someone was recommending the ASI290 over the ASI120 as it was more sensitive for guiding with an OAG. The Bresser is half the price of the ZWO ASI290 - if it is just being used for guiding, does the ZWO offer any advantages over the Bresser equivalent?

Build a turret and cap off with a Pulsar observatory?

Ebay is your friend for situations like this - I'd say a sale around £400-450 is possible looking at past sold prices. Meade ETX125 sold prices You may get a higher price selling on ebay as the ETX is at a price and size that it is likely to attract the 'casual' buyer looking to dabble for the first time.

I did a quick google, and couldn't really find any reference to 'Arrow Celestron' outside the Amazon listings. The model number is correct from the Celestron website, and the binoculars are sold by Amazon themselves (at an absolute bargain price) so unlikely to be a fake. If I didn't already have a pair of Helios 20x80 I'd have ordered by now.

You have to consider the relative placing of the two systems in the camera market. The EF mount has been around since 1992, has a large user base across a range of entry to top end camera models. Over 100m lenses have been sold by Canon alone, and there are several third party manufacturers of compatible, high quality lenses. By comparison, the 'R' series has been launched at the higher end of the market and has a significantly smaller user base. Being an early adopter always costs more, my 7dmk2 was around £1500 new, but I bought for around £980 around 15months later. You can see the same pattern with the RP model, which is down around 25% from launch price. I expect the price of RF lenses to fall as the user base grows, but it really needs more affordable cameras in the range for that to happen any time soon.

Mostly they seem to be 20-30% more in cost, which I put down to the fact it is still a relatively new system and I would expect prices to drop as the 'R' series becomes more popular. I'm waiting for an affordable 7dmk2 equivalent. I'd like an R6 but can't justify the cost, and when you seem the new features launched on the R5 and R6, the older models already looked outdated. No signs of any 'R' series models with APS sensors though, so whether Canon steer that towards the M series remains to be seem - that is one model range though that is being killed with lack of lens range. A useful website for camera prices if you have not come across it before: camerapricebuster

There are some interesting looking lenses coming out for the 'R' series - an f1.0 35mm lens could be very useful for night skies, and there is a third party affordable (APS-C format lens) which is available now - manual focus but f.95. These do depend on how deep your pockets are, but expect a lot more lenses to appear over the next 18 months. If you want to stay at the affordable end of superzoom, the 600mm f11 lens at £749 seems to offer value for money and would just not be possible in the EOS format.

I can't comment on the relative merits of either camera for astro, but are you aware Canon have started phasing out EF lens production? While there is a lot of 'legacy' equipment out there, development effort is now firmly on the 'R' series. (I'm assuming when you say 'R' ,you mean the R6 which pricewise is similar to the 5D but has the latest features including in-body stabilisation). Here's a link to a list of EOS lenses discontinued this year just to give you an idea of quickly the situation may be changing: EOS discontinued lenses 2021

Is there any difference between the USB2 and USB3 versions of the ASI290 if you are just using it for guiding?

A RASA is a little out of budget, but when buying the EdgeHD my thoughts were of getting the Hyperstar at some point in the future. At my current skill level for AP, that is a long way off, and from what I have read when that time comes, the RASA may be a more straightforward option.