Still struggling with which telescope arggh!!

[Willock1977]

Hi, Still struggling with choice . Ive got a skywatcher 130p at the moment but I need an upgrade, my budget is about £800, I basically want to do some photography hooked up to my laptop but still cant make a decision, has anyone used a nexstar 6? The smallness is good but not sure about the scope, I'd appreciate any advice you people could through to me! Thanks in advance

[DOBBY]

Keep the 130 for now... & spend the whole budget on as sturdy a mount (with tracking) as you can get....then look at changing 'scope if req'd.

[ollypenrice]

Do a lot of reading (but not on advertising websites!) before buying anything. The 6 inch SCT has a long focal length and slow F ratio but a bit of reading would tell you why to avoid that. Try Making Every Photon Count by Steve Richards, I'd say.

Olly

[Willock1977]

Ok ye that's all I've been doin is reading and more reading :-) what will a more sturdy mount do for me? Basically keeping it from rocking about when I'm taking pics? I've read somewhere you need a equitoral mount for photography but still not sure why, I better get reading again ha! Thanks for he replys

[182570]

not being facetious,but if you don't know why you need an equatorial mount then you really DO need to read up about it.

[rowan46]

if you want to do some serious imaging start with the skywatcher heq5 mount and then build your kit around it's needs. With visual work it's about supporting the largest scope you can afford. with astroimaging it's about keeping the mount as stable and accurate as possible you don't need a big scope you do need an accurate mount.

[brantuk]

An alt/az mount tracks in two planes up/down and left/right. This is fine for planets and short exposure photography. However dso's are faint and you need time to capture photons with long exposures of typically 5-10mins and more. Alt/az mounts will cause star trailing with exposures of this length.

An equatorial mount can be angled to the same angle as the Earths tilt. Because of this you will only need to track in a single plane RA (right ascension). This reduces star trailing and gives higher accuracy dependant only on the tracking rate. Further accuracy can be obtained with guiding but thats a whole other subject.

It's all in the mount - so if you get serious about imaging - get a good one

[Willock1977]

Thanks people much understandy!!!! :-)