GTom

I can only reflect others recommending the Evostar 72ED+reducer setup. Not talking from experience trough, astrobin brings up spectacular results with little compromise. Seek out second hand offers and you can keep the full kit costs below 500. Personally I would not go smaller than that, 10mm means a LOT below 4" especially if you ever use the scope for visual! But that's just me :). The mount might need a belt mod/tuning and if you don't have it already a solid tripod though to facilitate long guiding sessions.

Thank you for all the feedback, true, the HEQ5 is a solid mount, but a little on the heavy side. Before going with another mount, I'll take a closer look on the modding possibilities reported here, having a solid tripod this might be sufficient:

Following the topic: I want to revive my old EQ3-2. It is in very good shape, sitting on a rock stable steel tripod, I'd be flattered to convert this little mount to an AP workhorse!

I have a venerable EQ3-2 goto on a solid steel tripod, thought it might worth upgrading it to a level that it will be AP-capable with my heavy built 90/600 APO+heavy camera gear (total will be around 7kg). Any advice on materials and what needs to be replaced? E.g. can I keep the motors (both working fine) or do I need a full belt-driven assembly with a modern hand controller? Or forget it and bring it in for a stellardrive mod ?

MkIII is on the market now with two "ED" elements. Looking forward to see if the £200 higher price tag bringing any returns.

Maybe we can get away with a 1" sensor but I'd expect the field curvature of a native 335mm FL optics to be terrible: https://starizona.com/blogs/tutorials/field-curvature

Same here (West coast of Scotland): we do see the Sun during the day, goes in the fancy "sunshine hours" statistics, but 70-90% of the sky is covered. In the night worse, weeks are passing without seeing a single star or planet. Considering moving or at least establishing some kind of second home - but where? We are the last ones with B1-2 skies in the country...

Forgot to come back here, that was the result of my research as well. And being so long unresolved, it is very likely a hardware issue, that can only be "software patched" at the cost of valuable data loss. Staying out of this round.

Instead of buying a new mount for my 90/600 apo, I thought I could reuse an old EQ3-2 goto mount I had for years. Is there a reasonably priced upgrade kit that would turn this little guy into a photography-capable mount? Noteworthy that it came with a solid steel tripod and I also have plenty of counterweights, no need for upgrade there.

I have similar plans, has your setup eventually performed well over the past two years?

Do you still use the camera? Have you measured the power consumption with large delta (40+°C)?

Thank you Adam! For planetary work I'd lean to the new "B" filter, for deep sky to the old one, to make use of as many photons as possible 🤣. Will be using an SC and a triplet apo for these jobs, I think I'll be fine with the "old" design.

I am considering upgrading to 12" with an LX200 system. AP capable mount is a key pivot point of the project though: 2nd hand setups rarely come with wedges leaving two options: buying a wedge or defork and buy a heavy GEM. Deforking sounds like wasting precious equipment, I wonder if there is a not-superheavy wedge available in the UK for LX200 scopes? The Meade X-wedge alone costs almost as much as a decent 2nd hand GEM.

Many thanks for all comments, while doing my research on the ota-s noticed that Meade LX200 users quite often satisfied using guidescopes for AP and complain little about image shift, flexure, etc. The c11-c14 camp is quite the opposite, OAG seems to be a must. The added weight is both bad and good news: I can manage the weight. Not comfy, but perfectly doable. The good news: once the heavy stuff in place, WIND becomes much less of an issue...

Wow, that's new, I am doing my homework before buying an 11-12" SCT and found several comments on cloudynights claiming the LX200 STOCK OTA-s have manufacturer installed mirror lock, the LX90's not. Hence I decided to forget the LX90's, but seems the stock LX200 doesn't have a mirror lock either?

Considering a larger SCT to step up from my grab and go C5, can't decide between 11" (Celestron non-edge XLT) and 12" (Meade LX200, UHTC, non-ACF): I need some input from those who had the pleasure comparing these two scopes (F10 version from Meade), what would be the verdict? Visual, planetary and DSO AP all considered, DSO would be using the Starizona 0.63x - not planning Hyperstar. Some mobility is required, but lucky me I can lift the 12" LXD200 - very likely would be in trouble with the 14" Meade.

Just asked Retevis, they expect to offer the MONO version by October. Perfect timing for Black Friday

Indeed, cutting at ~450 would bring visible advantage if you have lenses in the imaging train. I'll have a 3x Barlow (svbony sv213), will check how much purple fringing does it add to the picture. It is claimed to be an APO Barlow, still, APO's have trouble with deep blue too (the Scope is an sct, shouldnt be an issue):

Question here for Baader's LRGB-set: older stock says "CCD optimized, no haze, no reflections etc," new stock is "cmos optimized". Is there any practical difference between the two?

Same question here for Baader's LRGB-set: older stock says CCD optimized, no haze, no reflections etc, new stock is "cmos optimized". Any practical difference between the two?

Thank you Chris, indeed, Canaries start around £100 out of seasons. Good to hear that it is a working thing!

Anyone flown with telescope gear larger than the cabin bag allowance? Some flights are still reasonably cheap if booked in advance, I was wondering if anyone flown to e.g. the Canaries booking an additional seat for the scope? Easyjet names Musical instruments, I wonder if the option could be used for e.g. a C11? https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/baggage/musical-instruments

Browsing for options to get a c11 brought me to the quite surprising C11-AVX setup offered by multiple UK retailers almost at OTA price. I wonder how many are using this combo and if the owners eventually kept the mount?

If you pay with paypal you are insured up to the total amount you paid. Still, electronics DOES die from time to time and you are stuck even if you "just" see severe banding on arrival. One single trip back will cost about the same as the price difference between the chinese and the uk supplier. IF the chinese supplier agrees with your claim

Couldn't found my way trough the gov. website maze, found this link on digital cameras, saying you pay 3.7% general rate, 20% VAT and whatever the courier is charging. AFAIK Royal Mail charges 8£, others much more. https://customsdutyfree.com/customs-or-import-duty-for-digital-camera-body-to-united-kingdom/ That results in a final bill of approx £900, depending who is shipping. The tricky bit comes when the camera doesn't deliver as expected or delivers a fault.