2Jules

Thank you I recently retired and also came into some money due to a family member passing away. Hence the budget. I have a Celestron 8 SCT which is about 25 years old gathering dust in my shed, which I took off that alt az arm goto thingy and put a vixen on it and attached it to my HEQ5 mount : better but still not great imaging or visual. Tried collimating it with stars in the dark. Still not great. What do I want to image? most things. The limitation in my opinion is the sky here. I went to Tenerife a few weeks ago. Have been there a few times. Mount Teide National Park. You can't take much on a plane. Good darks skies and about 7000 feet up. Quite a strong wind though. But now having problems with the Saharan sand : "Calima". this is supposedly only blowing on rare occasions a couple of months a year in the summer but strangely now is there more frequently including April, which interferes significantly. This is very disappointing. Yes I have been playing around with Telescopius. Very useful.

Hi all fellow astronomers. I am new to the forum and fairly new to astrophotography. Last summer I invested in a HEQ5 mount and Williams Optics Redcat51, ASIair+, guidescope and ASI533MCpro. Most interested in images of nebula in narrowband and the occasional galaxy if large enough. Got some good images of the Veil nebula using Optolong Enhance filter from London, during that really hot spell last summer. Very pleased with the tracking using HEQ5mount with Rowan upgrade. Can do 300 seconds easily. Now thinking about another telescope with greater focal length, but still mostly interested in narrowband DSO or monochrome LRGB. I use Pixinsight. Question : what telescope focal length would you recommend for objects such as Veil, Heart Orion nebula, M31, M33 and such like? Also thinking of investing into a ZWO ASI 2600MMpro and filter wheel etc. Expensive but should last a long time? Budget for next telescope around £2000 - 3000. I am interested in a Newtonian perhaps because I don't have one and they seem to be faster. A little concerned re collimation, but I am sure I could learn this. Or just stick with a refractor? I don't want anything too heavy since want to stick with my current mount. Apologies if discussed before? Thanks