Hi all,
Firstly, sorry for the long post!
Having been away from astronomy for nearly 10 years and having sold all my kit off, I’m now in the position of being able to get back into it properly! Before I jump into buying lots of kit this time, I’ve been trying to work out exactly what I want to do with it.
I’ve always had a large interest in imaging and, before I had to stop, had just started getting into autoguiding my 8SE SCT with a WO Megrez 72 and using a DSLR.
The issue I have with going down the same route again is that, whilst I want to get back into serious imaging, I also want a setup that I can put together and store relatively quickly and easily so that I can get maximum use out of it - I always found that setting all that up was always a faff and either ate into the available time, or put me off heading outside at all! On top of that, I’m now living in the suburbs with Bristol to the South, which is also pushing me towards narrowband and a dedicated imager due to the light pollution.
Finally - I do want the capability of doing the odd bit of visual observing too, mainly lunar and the odd fuzzy when the mood takes me.
So, now that’s all out of the way(!), I’ve been looking at something along these lines for an eventual set up:
WO ZS73 with the matched flattener - good compromise for widefield imaging with either DSLR (LP permitting) or narrowband imager - whilst still portable and easy to set up/take down quickly. Just not sure how much I will realistically be able to do with it on the visual front (Don’t know how much more bang for buck a larger aperture refractor would be - probably couldn’t push the budget to much more than an 80-ish aperture, looking at prices).
HEQ5 Mount - doesn’t necessarily meet the easy to set up/take down, but imagine I will need the capability again for guided imaging.
Small spotter scope with something like an ASI120 for guiding (and maybe also some lunar imagery through the main scope).
ASI1600MM pro with a filter wheel and narrowband filters for the main imager.
I’d probably start with the scope and mount, along with an LP filter to start off with the DSLR again, then slowly expand into the guiding set up and, finally, the narrowband kit. Fortunately, I still have a couple of half decent eyepieces left from my former life.
I’d appreciate any thoughts on the plan so far! One thing that’s obvious is that I am way out of touch with the available kit now compared to 10 years ago, so there are probably better options for the money that I’m not aware of. Thanks all!