New Celestron (well new to me)

[JonnyK]

I've just managed to buy a Celestron astromaster 130 eq md off ebay for £50 . Really chuffed with the condition (still has the protective plastic on most parts). I was just wondering how hard the md drive is to use and how much more will I be able to see with it compared to my 70mm refractor?Might sell the refractor if this one is any good. Another quick question would the celestron be better for astrophotography?I have adapted a webcam for the refractor and get good results but im planning on buying the correct pieces to attach my EOS 350.

[garethmob]

i dont have any experience of said scope, but if its in its plastic for £50 thas pretty good deal

i would say you would probally have a lot more joy using the webcam through the scope than using a dsl

a dslr needs a total smooth tracking and the backlash on that motors going to be not very good compared to say the eq5, you might get away with really really short subs say 10s but not long ones like some on here im afraid

[JamesM]

Hi Jonny, the newtonian certainly has more aperture which can equate to more resolution. Although an improvement, the aperture of the astromaster won't be sufficient to help define structure on many deep sky objects (DSO's) and will still appear as fuzzy blobs if I'm being honest. You will certainly see more nebulosity on objects like the Orion Nebula (M42).

As far as astrophotography is concerned, this scope will permit the use of a webcam on imaging the solar system (planets & moon) and works by deleting the poor 'frames' collected from the video taken, leaving the decent ones to be stacked on top of each using a free program 'Registax' to create a composite final image. Attempting to take single exposures from your digital camera on say the moon for example, will be a hit and miss affair as you attempt to to capture a focused image through our thick turbulent atmosphere. A webcam is far quicker in its exposures and so you will have more chance of obtaining exposures of the moon's surface that are in focus during split seconds of stillness in our atmosphere. Also, the weight of the camera on such a flimsy mount will itself create problems in any tracking accuracy obtained by the motor. However, regarding imaging of galaxies and nebulosity, the astromaster's mount is simply not up the job of tracking with sufficient accuracy DSO's which being so faint, require longer exposure times than solar system objects which are far brighter by comparison. Hope that helps.

James

[Tribal-Wolf]

The focuser on that scope is not recommended for attaching a dslr as it is really not strong enough, the mount will not take the extra weight. A webcam is the way forward with that scope.

[JonnyK]

Thankyou for the replies folks, i'll save my money then and not go down the DSLR route. I have taken some nice pics of the moon through the 70mm refractor and the webcam but I would like some photo's of jupiter and saturn so that's my next goal!