Cosmic Geoff

If your mount is the same as the Sky-watcher EQ3-2, then there are several motor kits that would fit, including a GoTo.

If you bought a RA motor for your existing mount, you would be able to perform stacked imaging of the Moon and planets. That would be a sensible next step.  I don't know anything about the EXOS-2 - it seems not to be a commonly purchased mount.

With most cameras you need to place it further in than with the typical eyepiece. (as much as half an inch closer) With some telescopes this may not be possible without modifications.  A Barlow lens may allow you to get focus in this case.

You seem to be comparing a dollar priced scope with a pound priced scope. 

My own research some years ago indicated that push-to and go-to scopes cost about the same.  Even though GOTo have motors and push-to do not, from a manufacturing point of view, they contain the same amount of "stuff".  That said, the XT8i looks like a good price - in the USA anyway...   To import to the UK, you will have to pay shipping and import duties.

The Sky-watcher Dob GoTo costs about the same as a 8' Newtonian on a German equatorial GoTo mount.

I suggest you look at other options/makers.  Is this purely for visual use?

The image moves when I adjust the levers in my ZWO ADC.  Nothing to do with the atmosphere affecting the apparent height - it's something to do with the prisms.

Which side do the levers go on? Whichever way gets rid of the colour dispersion.

There are two stages of alignment, centering in the finderscope (or maybe the eyepiece), terminated by pressing ENTER, which automatically changes the slew speed to a slow speed (no, the arrow buttons do not stop working, but it may look like it in the finderscope), and the fine align in the eyepiece, terminated by pressing ALIGN.

That's what happens with my Nexstar handsets.

I use the ZWO ADC which makes a marked difference with the levers set suitably. It's not a clone of the Altair so I can't help you with that one. 

I tried imaging the same event with a C8, ASI224MC, ADC.  The seeing did not look great, and the results, processed in Registax6, (best 20% of 5000 frames) were so poor I am deleting most of them. They look worse than images made a few days ago with my smaller 127mm Mak.  I don't think it was a focus problem as I focused on a star, Altair. 

In previous seasons I have found the results with the C8 imaging very variable - I assume due to the seeing. I am imaging from a town with built-up area for at least a mile to the south.  What is the terrain like at your location?

Did you read all of this thread? https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/272708-wedge-for-nexstar-se-68/

Having used a C8 SE for planetary imaging and put up with its wobble and backlash for a season, I think that the idea of putting it on a wedge and trying more ambitious forms of imaging with it is a bad joke.

You are not the first newbie to be baffled by the Synscan GoTo system, and I doubt you'll be the last.  It's a complex system. I recently acquired a Synscan upgrade for an EQ-5 and am still trying to make it behave.

Here's a run-down:

Familiarise yourself with how it is supposed to be assembled (indoors)

Set the mount for latitude (around 51-55 degrees in UK)

Identify the start position from the manual text and pictures.

Apply power, and practice entering the parameters in the correct format (indoors)

Select yes (1) and 1-star align (1, or scroll with keys at bottom of handset)

Pick a star and press Enter.  The mount will move under power, and come to rest hopefully pointing near the star you picked.  That's as far as you can go practicing indoors.

When you take it outside, do the polar alignment and then all the above again and proceed to finish the star alignment.  To escape from the alignment procedure when done, select another menu option.

Simple? No, it's not, but with practice you can tame it enough to do some observing.

If you have no ambition to do deep-space long exposure imaging, an alt-azimuth GoTo mount would be easier to manage.

The C9.25 OTA would be great for planetary viewing and imaging.  Almost the ideal size and design for the task.  Just a few cm bigger than my C8.  The depth of focus makes it easy to add on various imaging accessories. Or you could look at the new and less well known Classic Cassegrain designs, available in 8" aperture.

The AZ-EQ5 or AZ-EQ6 would be good mounts, and save you the annoyance of polar alignment if you plan to use the AZ mode for general viewing and planetary imaging.

As you hint, you will need a second scope (a small high quality refractor) for deep sky imaging.  The C9.25 is NOT suitable for this.

By the way, if you are intending excursions to the moors, I hope you've been to the gym, as the AZ-EQ5 and AZ-EQ6 are not lightweight. 🙂

Don't agonise over eyepieces as the C9.25 is f10, I think, and the CC's even longer FR, so eyepiece choice is not critical.  Inexpensive Plossls will work, so don't think that you have to buy expensive exotic types. Unless you really want to.

Likewise don't agonise over diagonals. Tests have shown that the cheap ones work just as well - the expensive ones are better made, the coatings will last longer and the light transmission is better (not that you'd notice in practice).  The C8 comes with a nice prism diagonal and I have seen no reason to change it.

CC: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/357242-ts-optics-cassegrain-telescope-c-2032436-ota/

I have a zoom eyepiece - a 8-24mm Starguider. Like many zoom eyepieces, it has a small apparent field of view at 25mm and a large apparent field of view at 8mm.   A slight re-focusing is required when changing the zoom.  And the zoom action is quite stiff, so I gave to take it off the telescope and hold it under a light to see what I am doing with it.  So a useful device for some tasks, but not  a substitute for a set of fixed eyepieces.

I have the same scope, and I reworked one of the dovetail bolts so that the bar would slide endways into the clamp of a SLT mount.  Basically I found a countersunk head screw with the right thread and countersunk the bar to sink the screw head.

You could do the same on a longer dovetail bar, if you have tools.

What broke, and why? With mine I left the spreader in place and retracted the legs so I could carry the tripod through doorways, with the telescope removed.  No point in removing the spreader and folding the legs unless you want to pack it away.

Didn't it come with a printed user manual?  If this was not sufficient, where have you looked online?

Basically, you have to polar align it (a mechanical operation), turn it on and enter various parameters (site, time etc), then do a star align (an electronic operation).

Why did you buy an AVX rather than an easier to use alt-az mount?

The C5 is a fine little scope, but the C5 SE is a visual scope outfit, and the mount is not suitable for deep space astrophotography, so if that is your primary interest you should buy something else.   It would work for planetary imaging, though.

Sky-Watcher Explorer-200P (EQ5 PRO) Parabolic SynScan GO-TO Newtonian Reflector  This is completely different from your first thought.  Again, not particularly suitable for astrophotography.  The mount is barely adequate for the 200p as a visual scope.  Again, if astrophotography is your main aim, buy something else.

You probably just need to tighten it up a bit more. Thousands of scopes use this system without reported problems.  Including several of mine.

Following my effort of 22 June, being unable to lift anything heavy, I set up my lighter weight telescope in a different position from the previous night to get some images of Mars.  This was the first serious use of my EQ-5 with Synscan upgrade.  I set up the gear and left it tracking the assumed GoTo position of Jupiter for a couple of hours.  At 2am, Jupiter was not within the 25mm eyepiece field.  Not so impressive.

I repeated the imaging of Jupiter and Saturn, and also took images with the ZWO infrared filter.  While slewing back to Jupiter, now apparently past the meridian, the mount did a meridian flip and ended up pointing at a street lamp. I was not impressed. ☹️

Eventually Mars emerged from behind an adjacent building, and I took  images in IR, visual, and visual with a x2 Barlow lens.

Equipment: 127mm Maksutov 1500mm fl, ASI224MC camera, ADC, x2 Skywatcher Barlow,  best 20% of 5000 frames (visual), processed in Registax6. EQ-5 Pro Synscan mount.

Key: Monochrome images were taken in infrared. Larger Mars image with Barlow.   Mars was jigging about in the poor seeing by nearly its diameter (11").  Note: the hottest moon (Io, to left of planet) seems slightly brighter in the IR images.   I think the 127mm Mak punches through poor seeing better than larger apertures.

I recently had a minor chest operation which has temporarily left me unable to lift anything heavy, which has curtailed my astronomical activities. Last night, being clear in the late evening and early hours, seemed too good to miss, so I set up my 127mm Maksutov in place of the CPC800.

I had intended to image Mars as well, but discovered in the early hours that having set up in a different position to my 30 May effort, Mars was blocked by an adjacent building till dawn.

Equipment: 127mm Maksutov, SLT mount, wood tripod, ASI224MC camera, ADC,  each best 20% of 5000 frames, processed in Registax6.  The Great Red Spot should just be visible disappearing around the side of Jupiter.  Part of the Cassini division is visible in the Saturn image.  Overall these have not turned out too badly, considering the low altitude and poor seeing.

I used to work in the electronics industry.  I do not recall encountering any power supplies that failed by giving an over-voltage, though I am sure it is possible. I dimly recollect that some designs included a crowbar protection, so that should an over-voltage start to occur, the power supply output would instantly be clamped to 0v. Cheap supplies may omit the protection circuitry...

As for a high voltage appearing at switch-on, was this with the power supply loaded or unloaded? A power supply is supposed to have a load, so it may be possible for a transient to occur with no-load that would not occur if the load was present.

I am not convinced by the idea of using a step up or step down converter. To my mind this just introduces another point of failure.

A battery supply for a mount etc has the advantage that the output cannot rise to a damaging level, and also you can't electrocute yourself with 13 volts dc.

Multiple supplies may have an advantage in that some devices (mounts) are sensitive to over and reverse voltage while others (dew heaters) are not.

Almost all power supplies these days are switchmode, and (especially if poorly designed) could generate some electronic hash.  There are also linear regulated supplies, generally distinguished by their weight and lower efficiency.

The later C8's have dedicated dome-headed screws front and back for fixing dovetail bars, finders, etc.  With luck, the old ones will have similar.  The hardest part of using them is figuring out the thread sizes so you can buy bolts of the right length - probably UNF or UNC in this case.

What are you going to mount it on - the HEQ5 Pro?

I had an EQ-2 clone mount a few years ago and I was not impressed by it. Wobbly with a 70/700 refractor.  Buying anything from ebay can be risky, and if you buy a secondhand mount it is quite likely that it might need a bit of sorting out. Which might require some knowledge of mounts and DIY skills.  I once bought a used EQ-5 mount, and when it arrived it was in bits and I had to reassemble it, and replace a missing eyepiece tray with chipboard.

I think you know what I am going to say. Your proposal is unrealistic. I suggest that you buy your relative a beginner's visual scope (eg the Heritage 130p) and let him/her contend with the practicality and cost of doing imaging. 

The 127mm Maksutov is an excellent scope for its size and there are very few complaints about them.  It does not do widefield, but then no scope does everything.

The Mak should come with a 1.25" diagonal. But if you want to spend money on a replacement, that's up to you.

The Mak has a long focal ratio which renders a Barlow largely unnecessary.