Cosmic Geoff

Before you buy anything else, buy the book "Making Every Photon Count" by Steve Richards. This book is an essential introduction to astrophotography and should answer many of your questions. It is available from forum sponsor FLO.

A competent electronic engineer would be able to de-solder the power jack and replace it with an identical part. (A solder-sucker or other tool will be required). Tomatobro however is suggesting that there is a break in the PCB tracking. A competent engineer would also be able to fix that by some suitable means, eg by repairing the track or bridging it end to end with a piece of wire joining the solder pads. This could also be an opportunity to replace the not-very-satisfactory original jack by a better designed part. Whether you or your kids feel competent to do this is up to you - otherwise seek professional help.

It would be inadvisable to try moving the outfit fully assembled. If you store it as separated OTA and mount/tripod, and separate counterweight, two or three black binbags should suffice to keep dust and drips off, as well as screening the kit from prying eyes..

Further to my previous post, I dispensed with the flip mirror assembly, using a star diagonal to give some spacing. It is fairly easy to manage without it. The widened field of view also helps... Using Celestron's 'Precise Goto' the 'PG' aligning star sometimes appears in the camera field, and if it doesn't, the 9x50 RACI finder can be used to correct the aim. I also found out that it was possible to do a plate-solve on a rich starfield with this setup, with Sharpcap/ASPS NGC2440 was quite low, so low that the 'precise Goto' star was behind a building and I had to manage without.

A lot of the cheaper zoom eyepieces of sundry brands are essentially the same (you can tell by looking at the specs and sales pictures.) Some models of the 7-21mm variety were reported to be awful. I have a 8-24mm BST Starguider zoom which looks just like several other brands, e.g. Celestron. It did not cost much, and performs quite well optically. BUT the action is so stiff that I have to take it off the telescope to adjust it, and the FOV at 24mm is so small that I never use that setting. A small FOV at lower power is a common feature of zoom eyepieces.

I tried this a few times using simlar techniques to planetary imaging. It works well with doubles of roughly equal brightness, less so when the brightnesses of the components are very unequal.

Good suggestion. I intend to try doing without the flip mirror at the next observing opportunity.

That might be a long search. New and used 4 inch to 6 inch telescope tube assemblies are now so cheap in the West (compared with average wages) that there is no interest in new pre-made mirrors of these sizes. There is a site https://www.astroboot.eu/AstroBoot which sells parts removed from unsaleable telescopes, which might have what you want sooner or later. (They have some 76mm dia mirrors in stock). I do not know if they ship to India - currently they do not ship to the UK because of Brexit, which is not encouraging.

I have acquired a f6.3 focal reducer and tried it out last night. First results indicate that it is a very worthwhile purchase. Images of the same PN with three different setups are shown below. Unfortunately the extra length of the reducer causes the imaging train to hit the forks base at altitudes above 70 degs - a major problem. I will have to figure out a workaround - can I find objects without the flip mirror diagonal while maintaining the backfocus in the recommended range, or find a more compact adaptor to connect the flip mirror and reducer (that would be T2 to SCT thread)?

The Baader Skysurfer III. I have tried others and this is well made and the most reliable so far.

I use a Baader Skysurfer III on my 102mm f5 Startravel (same focal length as your scope).

I used the basic red dot fnder with my ST102 Startravel, but when it failed (as they do 😧) I bought a Baader Skysurfer IV. I never saw the need for an optical finder.

Why not buy the ZWO IR-cut filter, which costs about £20? It's purpose is to block the IR (to which the camera is quite sensitive) to prevent colours looking off. If you try the camera in daylignt with the fisheye lens supplied you will soon see what I mean...

I don't think this is sound advice. With my 127mm Mak - a similar aperture to your proposed purchase, but with a focal ratio of around f12.5, I don't have trouble getting things in field even using it manually on an Az-4 mount (it came with a SLT GoTo mount). The SCT is f10. There are various choices open to you, each with their own peculiarities, pros and cons.

Just my opinion, but I do not think a manual alt-azimuth mount is a good match for a scope with a 2 metre focal length, even with the addition of a Starsense.

The general opinion seems to be that Celestron and Meade SCTs are both good (meaning the OTA) but the Meade mounts do not have a good reputation for reliability. Meade also had some kind of financial problem recently which you should look into before buying. You should also look into what sort of reputation they have/had for technical support as I don't want to type anything prejudicial without checking. You should also note that large SCT outfits are often a whole lot cheaper on the second-hand market. Like half the price of a new outfit. For instance, a forum member is selling a C9.25 OTA for what looks like a give-away price. " I will liberate a starsense explorer mount for the upcoming SCT." The SCT probably deserves a better mount than that. If it's for visual, you could buy the Nexstar Evolution C8 bundle. It is questionable whether you need the ACF or Edge options unless you are going to image deep-sky objects with your SCT, in which case you need a serious equatorial GoTo mount.

The CPC/heavy duty tripod is a lot heavier but very rigid. Celestron supply it with a 11" SCT. The C8 SE tripod+ mount is not bad so long as you use it for visual in a sheltered location with the legs retracted to minimum length. The tripod itself is vey light. On the plus side, you can leave the whole outfit assembled for storage and carry it through a domestic doorway. For transportation, the mount/OTA comes off the tripod easily but if you split the OTA and mount (by slackening one clamp knob) you have the problem of holding a fat OTA that has no grab handle and needs two hands to hold it securely...

The main reason for choosing the Evo 8 over the C8 SE is that the Evo has a better quality mount. The tripod is different but may not be much stiffer than that of the C8 SE (it looks much the same in photos). It has WiFi, and yes there is a battery, but it's rather small and uses the kind of chemistry found in laptop batteries. Some Celestrons have the heavy duty tripod ( distinguished by a large cast aluminium eyepiece tray and separate spreader) which is far more substantial (and quite heavy). Dangerous words...

Noted. I am thinking that I may buy a 0.63 focal reducer.

I have read this thread with interest as I have been imaging a number of the same PNs and recently have tried re-imaging a number of PNs recorded with 102mm f5 achro and ASI224MC camera, this time using a CPC800 (8" f10 SCT) and ASI224MC. Examples of NGC 2392 are attached. These are single images (for other objects I achieved live stacked images) The more populated image is taken with the 102mm. The images taken with the 8" SCT generally show more detail of these very small objects but the exposures are much longer. The results seem limited in exposure by the Bortle 6 sky-glow and in resolution by the bad seeing. For instance I have not been able to image NGC246 (pictured in this thread) at all. I have not decided what combination of telescope and sensor works best or what upgrade of equipment might be worth considering.

I should think that unless Celestron can supply the missing part, your other options are to find a scrap 4SE (unlikely) use a diagonal on the camera port, or to have a new eyepiece barrel made by a machine shop. The last would be easier done if you still have the lower, threaded portion and can purchase a 1.25" extender to rework.

I bought a Startravel 102mm initially on impulse, to complement my 127m Maksutov. I found little use for it (yes it does widefield but in Bortle 6 skies this is rather underwhelming) until I found it worked well as a budget imaging scope for EVAA (q.v).

The 127mm Maksutov is an instrument with various uses, and is one you are likely to want to keep. The Startravel is likely to be less versatile. I have telescopes similar to both, and rarely use the Startravel for anything other than basic (EVAA) imaging of deep sky objects. The obvious visual application of a Startravel is for widefield views, but in practice in Bortle 6 skies the results are under-whelming. If you can afford (or want) GoTo it greatly extends the things you can do with a given telescope.

I have a Starguider budget binoviewer, and found it can be tricky to use. It adds about 100 mm to the optical path, requiring a major re-focusing. The distance between eyepieces has to be adjusted to suit your eye spacing. Mine came with a pair of short-barrel 30mm Plossl eyepieces (no undercuts) and it worked much better with these than with my alternative - a pair of 20 plossls, one with undercut. With the latter it was very difficult to merge the images, With the two included Barlows, sharpness was poor except in the middle of the POV. When everything works right, e.g. on the Moon, the views are amazing.

I have one of these and I carry it securely by gripping either the main tube or the dovetail bar. I really don't see the point of fitting a handle.