Upcoming birthday - suggestions please

[appalachik]

Apart from finding out I share my birthday with the astrophysicist and Nobel prizewinner William A Fowler (and also Betty Boop and Gillian Anderson, amongst others), I've also found out that my Dearly Beloved wants to indulge my astro obsession... Yes, I know I'm a very, very lucky girl.

Anyway, I was wondering what to buy, given that I've been actively looking for my ideal telescope and mount for ages. I'm happy to buy used rather than new as I'm likely to get better quality than I can afford new.

I'm thinking that an 8" F5/F6 Orion Optics Newtonian on an equatorial mount such as the Vixen GPD2 / HEQ5 / CG-5 will give me the best possible value for money. I'd like to use EQMod for control, so a motorised mount would either be immediately necessary or a straightforward upgrade.

Given that I need the basic essential accessories too, (focuser, eyepieces, collimation device, finder, filters etc), I was thinking that I might go for a 6" 'scope instead, so the main money can go to the mount and the eyepieces.

I can probably stretch the budget to a max of £850 so I'm thinking it wont be easy to meet all my wishes... Which is why I'm looking for some advice from the experienced folks here as to how to put together the best possible deal. So any ideas will be really welcome

I'm mostly going to be into a range of visual astronomy targets but am keen to try astrophotography (hence the importance of the mount) and I'm not blessed with great seeing as I'm on the outskirts of a city.

Jenna

[kharga]

How about the skywatcher Explorer 200PDS plus EQ5 pro (goto) mount for about £800.00 Sky-Watcher Explorer-200PDS newtonian telescope.

[Stephen]

There's two or three HEQ5s on ABS at the moment

[appalachik]

Looks really nice, but price-wise, it's over budget at £950 with the HEQ5 mount. I'm pretty sure that the EQ5 is considered marginal for astrophotography. I'd not seen that 'scope before... I see the focuser is upgraded from the 200P, which is nice. I specced an F6 because I understand that as you go lower, collimation can become trickier (and I'm going to be new to all this) and also, eyepieces may be harder to match. Also, my spending might not end here as it seems that a coma corrector is a possible requirement for astrophotography with this model.

It's food for thought though, definitely. Thanks Kharga

Jenna

[appalachik]

Sorry to seem dim Kh3ldar, but what is ABS?

Jenna

[appalachik]

Dim indeed... I've just worked it out Kh3ldar. Looked on Astro Buy Sell and I can see that no less than five HEQ5's have recently sold there. 2 of them pretty local to me, as well. Looks like a good place for trades though.

Jenna

[appalachik]

I've just had a thought... given my budget limitations does anybody have an opinion on the validity of this approach - spend my money on a nice 8" reflector, get all the accessories I want to get started and keep looking for a used HEQ5 mount. It seems to me that the OTA is basically the same, so all I'd need is a set of tube rings to convert from DOB to Equatorial... or am I missing something?

Jenna

[Black Knight]

I've just had a thought... given my budget limitations does anybody have an opinion on the validity of this approach - spend my money on a nice 8" reflector, get all the accessories I want to get started and keep looking for a used HEQ5 mount. It seems to me that the OTA is basically the same, so all I'd need is a set of tube rings to convert from DOB to Equatorial... or am I missing something?

Jenna

If when you say "a nice 8" reflector, get all the accessories I want to get started and keep looking for a used HEQ5 mount", you mean get an 8" Dob, then yes this certainly one route to go down, and many have before.

This approach would have a lot of advantages. The only drawback I can think of off-hand is that many Dob OTAs will be relatively slow, with focal ratios greater than F5, whereas reflectors designed for imaging will be faster with focal ratios at, or less than F5 in some cases. Just something you may want to bear in mind if astrophotography is somewhere you do intend to go.

[Star Crazy]

Hello, if its not to late I would definitely go and buy a pre-used ( posh for second hand) ETX 125 for about £400. Its motorized and goto, should come with a decent set of plossls and maybe some accessories and the views can be extremely comparable to some of it's bigger brothers i.e. LS200 etc.

Then with the change you could buy a decent camera such as the Canon Eos450d .

Good luck and HAPPY BIRTHDAY,

Star Crazy.