GiovanniF

I'm about to buy the 150pds which come with the same 6x30, I actually just found your post because I was looking for the same. After some research I can't find many cheap options, the cheapest I think it wold be the Astro Essentials 32mm f/4 Mini Guide Scope at 55£ and shouldn't need adapters as the focus range is quite large, come already with a skywatcher mounting, but it's 128mm FL and small diameter. Next best option, if weight it's not a problem, it might be a Startravel 80 but you need to find the way to attach it and just the ota costs about 90£, the Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED Guidescope it's very nice, and expensive, 200£. But as I said, I'm not an expert, I just happen to be searching for the same thing for a few days now.

Thank you Tim, I've heard so many bad reviews about the reflections with the skywatcher one, so at least now I can see with my eyes how the MPCC works on the same rig, definitely the way to go. Kind Regards.

Nice shot, I'm looking to get a 150pds too, and I'm wondering if you used a coma corrector on that shot, and which one if you did. I'm doing some research to be sure to get the proper gear, and I start getting very confused about that part.

Thank you very much Steve, That, actually answer my question, and very nice photo. That's more than enough for me, and the cem40 would have been a bit of a stretch for my budget. Knowing that you can achieve decent 3 minutes unguided, and as far as I can tell by the size of this photo, good 5+ minutes without tweaking PHD make me feel more than happy on buying it.

Thanks for the input, I saw with my eyes the D2 in action here in my area and of course it's not perfect or a good option to dark sky but he was shooting at iso 1600 120s while me without filter and same aperture, iso 800 60s, that's actually 2 stop and gives me feeling that I could shoot 3 or 4 minutes with a low gain quite easily. I've seen a talk from Robin Glover from Sharpcap, and he explained that shorter or longer subs with the same total acquisition, will give you same results but still, I prefer not to go too short as I don't want to end up with dozen of hard drive, I'm a fashion photographer and it's already hard to manage space, depending on the object, I would rather stay between 2 as very minimum and 3 or 4m as average, and in January I will go for an ZWO1600 and narrowband. I'm not trying do it long just for the sake of doing it, I'm more interested on finding a balance between managing space and problem of too long exposures such as oversaturation or tracking. As for the weight that's ok for me, I can manage that.

Hi Steve, I see that you have quite a few gear similar or the same as the one I will get, the WO Z73 and the canon 600D and of course the mount as you mentioned. What type of guiding error do you get on average when guiding with that combo? And how long you have to go before seeing elongated stars? Did you ever reach that point? I know that it depends on seeing and polar alignment, but it can start giving me an idea. Giovanni.

Hi to everyone, I used to do some astrophotography in the past with a Celestron AVX and DSLR but after few month had to give up for several reasons, including light pollution (I'm living in zone 3 east London), and also working shifts. Now I want to start again, and this time more serious. I've been searching around for a couple of months to choose all the gear and I'm quite happy with the list so far although it's a bit over the price I planned at first. I will get an William optics Z73 with his 50mm guide scope, a flattener/reducer 0.8, light pollution filter IDAS D2 and as camera I will use a Canon 600D modded and I will buy a ZWO 183MC Pro, after so much research, I'm very happy with the scale and framing I will get with this combo, but I'm starting to get confused with the mount. My first idea was to go for an HEQ5 Pro, as my previous experience with the AVX has been awful, then I realized that the FLO, sells that mount with belt modification and also some cleaning and tuning if required, I heard that it's a big improvement over the stock one and the price it's ok, but another important factor for me it's portability. Unfortunately, my garden doesn't allow me to do much so I will need to carry around on trolley, for a km walk, I'm a strong person and been doing plenty of time with the AVX, so my confusion came recently when the iOptron mounts entered my radar. I start comparing the heq5 pro with belt, with the iOptron cem25EC and the CEM40 without encoders, and I'm so unsure of which to buy, the cem25 seem to be the equivalent of heq5 at least speaking of payload, but in some threads I read people saying it's a bit fragile so kind of remove it from the equation although the weight it's interesting for my situation, then the cem40, seem to be quite similar on weight to the heq5 but with higher payload and that's interesting too as I will buy a C11 at some point. Now it will all come down to the accuracy of tracking I guess, how the heq5 and cem40 would compare on tracking and guiding? If the cem40 it's better, I would probably go with that since it holds more and would last longer as I don't plan to get anything bigger than a C11, but if the skywatcher it's better, I could decide to go for that, and when I move to a place with better garden then get a second mount with higher payload. Apologise for the long post and my english. Kind Regards, Giovanni.