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MALIENGLEZ

By MALIENGLEZ
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MALIENGLEZ

MALIENGLEZ

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Hi all,

Complete Newbie here.

I just bought my son a 90mm Skywatcher Mak Cas for his 10th birthday. Unfortunately He lives abroad so I could only play with it for a little while.

Now Im wanting to get into astronomy myself and am looking for a scope to buy. I fancy getting into astrophotography.

Ive read a fair bit and can see I will need a good mount such as an eq5 and probably a 80mm or above refractor.

Could do with some buying tips please.

best Regards

Paul

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eddy

eddy

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Hi Paul, as a newbie to especially to astrophotograpy and using an EQ5 with motor drives i can give a little advice, albeit not very good advice.

If your budget allows, get the biggest mount you can for photography, thats pretty much the key to success. By all means you can use the EQ5 as so many have successfully and its quite an apt mount with room for upgrades etc etc.

A refractor would be better suited to deep sky objects due to the wide field of views that they offer, BUT....(there is a but) the cheaper Achromats will show false colour and 'bloom' the stars with a nice blue halo (this is unwanted btw) where as more up market/APO/ED style refractors are better color corrected thus reducing this Halo.

Thats the best i can do @ 4am lol :(

Welcome to the forum to btw, you'll learn a lot here :(

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Paul and welcome to SGL, if it is your desire to get into AP then probably your first purchase should be a copy of "Every Photon Counts", available from FLO our sponsor and endorsed by many as an invaluable step forward for those contemplating stepping into the world of imaging :(

John.

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Catweazel

Catweazel

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Hi Paul, welcome to SGL, I would say that if you want to get into AP, you need an APO refractor, 80mm would be fine, but they are more expensive than standard refractors. If you are starting off with visual astronomy, and want to upgrade to AP later on, get the best mount you can afford (at least EQ5), and a reflector telescope, like the SW 150P or 200P, for example. :(

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Paul and welcome to the forum. I agree with John and Dave about regarding getting hold a Steve Richard's book - a definite must! Imaging planets and the moon can be done using most reasonable scopes whilst taking advantage of the free software that is out there which you will need to process the image data into a good final image. Titles to look for will be Registax, Sharpcap, Wx Astrocapture and Craterlet.

With deep sky objects (DSO's) the key is the ability to track these faint objects accurately in order to collect sufficient data to construct a good final image. The mount's motors therefore need to be sufficiently accurate and the mount itself needs to have the right payload capacity to carry all the kit. To further assist in tracking these faint objections, many imagers use an attached guide scope which is focused on a nearby reference star to the object being imaged. This guide scope is able to make microsecond adjustments to the mount's motors in order to keep the chosen reference star in its cross hairs and as a consequence, help keep the main imaging scope on its intended subject too. This would help create a pretty accurate imaging 'rig' and goes a very long way in ironing out many of the frustrations of data capture, particularly if you have to set the scope etc up each time. Steve's book will provide some of the understanding behind what I have described above and much more and is why it is important to get the necessary overview.

I would certainly recommend staying a way from EBay unless you know exactly what you are buying but I would endorse using UK AStro Buy & Sell to seek a cheaper route to getting the right setup - mind you, everybody else has the same idea!:(:D:D You can of course always ask questions on any proposed purchase and we will be glad to advise on the technicalities. Hope the above helps.

Clear skies for now

James

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MALIENGLEZ

MALIENGLEZ

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Hi all and thanks for all the welcomes and advice.

That book is definitely on my to buy list.

Also I couldn't help myse lf and have bought a nearly new ikharos 80ED

No tripod or mount yet, that will have to wait till payday.

Please let me know your thoughts on my purchase.

Regards

Paul

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