akarmicanomaly

Thanks for all the advice, definitely makes for some interesting thinking and reading from everyone's experiences! Thanks Zermelo, I did check FLO over the Black Friday period, but never saw that! Alas was snapped up quick by some lucky soul. jacobingonzo - Always nice to see a fellow from Carlisle! It's a small world, even online! Will definitely let you know which road I end up going down

Was looking to plumb the wisdom of this community on this one and see what advice is there for someone dipping his toe in. I'm just getting started and been using a 90mm Skywatcher Refractor on a EQ3-2 Mount for the last few months. I also have experimented with a basic second hand Celestron LCM Mount to get a taste for GoTo - Alt/AZ style. It's definitely a hobby i'd like to keep pursuing, so have set myself a rough £400-500 budget to get myself a new telescope that will last another year or two until I get a bit more experience, before investing anything else. My requirements/situation I'm fortunate enough to live in the Lake District and have good skies, with only a little light pollution. And proper dark skies are only a half hour drive away. I'm looking for something that will get good planetary views, allow me to see plenty of deep sky objects and maybe dabble a little with short exposure astrophotography with an old Nikon D5000 I have. Definitely leaning towards a Reflector Newtonian. My background is as an Optician, so I'm pretty familiar with collimation and the optical theories behind telescopes, so I don't mind a little increased complexity. In the long run I'm definitely interested in astrophotography, but it's not my priority (saving towards a new house means spending anymore on a hobby is a no-go currently). I'm quite happy dabbling with short exposure times and learning the basics as I go for now, and I'm aware of limitations with Alt-Az mounts in this area. If I wanted to pursue photography fully, I'd be looking for a dedicated scope towards that goal. Ease of use on the night is definitely preferred as is portability on trips away. On the GoTo side I'm getting the hang of Celestron's CWI software and the Handset with 3 Star/Manual alignment. Main priority is for nights of star gazing alone or with friends and partner. So things that have caught me eye: Skywatcher Star Discovery 150i Wifi Sky-Watcher Explorer 200P EQ5 The Skywatcher Star Discovery is very tempting. No collimation, GoTo functionality, Wifi control from a Phone or Tablet and I understand it's relatively easy to move manually as well. And it's a lot of scope for what looks a decent price. But for a little more I could go for a 200p with a EQ5 Mount. Having never used anything beyond a 90mm refractor I'd be interested what people's experiences are with a 150 vs 200 reflector and what a difference it makes for what I'm looking to do with it. At first I considered just going for a 200 Reflector OTA, but I did some digging and the EQ3-2 Mount I currently have wouldn't support the weight of such a scope? If anyone has some pearls of wisdom or experience to share it would be well appreciated.

I've had a good search through a lot of similar threads for help, and not really found an answer. So forgive the question if it's a common one. I have a Celestron LCM mount, which connects via a USB A to Mini B Cable. Firmware all updated. The goal is to use Astrophotography Tools to control the Camera and Mount, rather than two seperate programs just for ease of convenience. Installed: Latest ASCOM Platform 6.5 Prolific Serial Drivers Celestron CWPI Celestron Unified Telescope Drivers for ASCOM CWPI works fine via Manual Connection to Handset. Using the ChipCheck program that comes with the Prolific Serial Drivers it confirms a Device is connected to COM PORT 3. Checked under Device Manager and can confirm COM PORT 3. However, trying to connect to the mount via APT is where the issue lies - particularly when the ASCOM Chooser function shows. If i use the Celestron Unified Drivers no COM Port is visible. If I use advanced options and 'Force Show all Com Ports' and manually select 3, no luck. If I use the CWPI Ascom selection it simply says 'Incompatible Driver' I've already uninstalled and reinstalled all drivers, with zero luck. Pictures provided. If anyone can shed some light on how to fix this it would be greatly appreciated. Or if there is any other software that can control both mount and camera which doesn't have these problems, though I suspect the fault lies with an ASCOM driver somewhere. Thanks for your patience and help to a newbie.