£400 or a £900 telescope?

[Macavity]

A £400 scope can sometimes be "upgraded" to equal a £900 scope. But you may have to spend £500 (or more!) in the process? <G> I think *budget* scopes provide a useful avenue for those less well... "financially endowed" and also a useful learning platform, *if* you like fiddling with hardware... and want to learn stuff.

But, without malice, one sees comparative newcomer Astronomers buy the £900 scope and achieve RESULTS, just as good (and certainly more rapidly!) as "sad old gits" [teasing] who sweat and slave to optimise a £400 scope.

Given my time again, I'd just buy a Celestron 8" SCT GoTo and be done with it. Though it'd be an extra £500 over the £900 scope... And I was never very good at saving / waiting.

[Gina]

But why-oh-why do they focus by moving the primary mirror. Seems quite ridiculous to me!

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Asteele3, I tend to just use my scopes for visual, you really need to try and take a look through as many scopes as you can, either star parties or a local club, yes - I started with a small scope and with a lot of research, I understood what to expect - you see a lot of threads on here saying "what can I expect to see with my new scope".

Each person advances in the hobby in different ways - visual for me, over a number of years, kept different scopes for at least a year so as to see the changing constellations over the seasons and look at as many a different object as my sky allows (really suffer with bad light pollution from the West Midlands). Alot of the DSO's are "invisible" or just barely "detectable", not had the chance to use from a dark site - this is another thing to take into account - very important - depending on your skies - this will have a major effect for you in the hobby.

Over the years I have always tried to observe as many objects as possible, even with poor skies, with a little patience a great deal can be done - the night sky is there every night, clear - scopes out, cloudy - laptops out, some nights are alot better than others due to sky transparency/seeing - but not many.

I think you need to try and get a look through as many scopes as you can - ask questions as not to end up spending a lot of money on a set up, only to find you posting threads which sound as though your'e not 100% happy with your choice and would have expected to see more than you do. Cheers Paul.

[asteele3]

Thanks for all the help!

I went out and bought a Canon EOS 1100d yesterday, great bit of kit!

Just waiting for a clear night now to see what else I can do!

[Chris]

Very good purchase is the 1100D, I love mine:)

[Uhwaz]

I have 200P on EQ5 and do some AP ... i would kill for having NEQ6

EQ5 - yes u can image on that but you will end up throwing away 50% subs

I ll get at least NEQ6 in future and IF i knew year ago what I know now I would buy it strait away from start

About DSLR and back focus - you dont need the PDS version but - low profile T rings etc are needed i have about 5mm left to go inwards on stock focuser

Hope it helps

[Teslar]

If I was starting out again it would be an ED80 Pro £470

NEQ6 mount £900

Canon 1100D £430

Baader Hyp Z £180

Throw in a filter and you have a £2K budget and nothing would be redundant at any future stage no matter where your interest in astronomy takes you. Right out of the gate you'd be able to see and photograph anything in the sky once you hone your skills you can add equipment and if you upgrade the scope you would have an excellent finder scope in the ED80.

However as you have seen there are many routes to follow so take your choice but IMHO the route above is least cost and least waste

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[Gina]

If I was starting out again it would be an ED80 Pro £470

NEQ6 mount £900

Canon 1100D £430

Baader Hyp Z £180

Throw in a filter and you have a £2K budget and nothing would be redundant at any future stage no matter where your interest in astronomy takes you. Right out of the gate you'd be able to see and photograph anything in the sky once you hone your skills you can add equipment and if you upgrade the scope you would have an excellent finder scope in the ED80.

However as you have seen there are many routes to follow so take your choice but IMHO the route above is least cost and least waste

Sent from tapatalk

I agree most definitely This was the advice from the imaging experts on here and the advice I followed which I have never regretted. The Baader zoom is really for observing though - I wasn't too happy with a camera on it as the camera rotates with the zoom. But yes - for a full coverage of all aspects of astronomy I doubt you could do better. And it gives you the best start in the more difficult aspect of astro-photography.

[asteele3]

I've already got the Canon 1100d.

Would the HEQ5 mount be any good?:

Skywatcher HEQ5 PRO Synscan?

and maybe the Nexstar 4SE or 5SE?

I have £2,500 left in my bank after the Canon and I don't really want to spend £927 on the NEQ6 mount and then £449 on the telescope: £1,376!

That leaves me with £1,124 in my bank which is obviously not bad but I'd prefer it if I could get some cheaper so I'm left with around £1,500? I can always save up which I'll probably do! But I need a T-ring for it as well?

[idbvideo]

HEQ5 is a fine mount. I have one ;-) Sorry I dont know about the Nexstars...

[Uranium235]

*cough*.... Skywatcher ED80

Accept nothing less than FPL53 glass.

[Grandad]

The Heq5 is a great mount....same motors and precision as the Heq6 but lighter and thus easier to lug about.

If you image with small refractors, such as the sw ed80 or the brilliant (sorry biased somewhat) william optics megrez 70 or 72mm, then the heq5 will do an excellent job; even when you need to add a second scope and camera for guiding.

If you go the route of imaging through reflectors of 200mm or similar you may eventually need to think of buying the heavier mount.

I have had all types of scopes and would never change from the compact simplicity of a decent refractor but it took a lot of scopes before I came to that conclusion.

You could always buy a cheap sw80mm achro refractor to play with (and get some decent results) and this scope will eventually become your guide scope whatever you decide to upgrade to.

John

[Digz]

IMO I would get the NEQ6 as this will give you a better capacity and sturdier mount for when you take the next step and want to guide.....

[Teslar]

Nexstar 6SE is the smallest I'd recommend I have one and should have bought the 8SE. Actually as I stated if I was starting fresh definitely the ED80 pro much more useful and l longer term than the nexstar. HEQ5 is a good mount and the lowest you should consider for future proofing you should be able to get both the ED80 pro and HEQ5 for your budget around £1200 max

http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/evostar-80-ed-ds-pro-heq5-pro-synscan-goto-mount_d4498.html

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[Gneiss]

The ED80 is by far, £ for £ the best scope I've ever owned... and as others have said the HEQ5 is a great general purpose mount.

If I could only own one reasonably priced set-up then that would be it... although I'd hate to give up the PST.

[asteele3]

Is the Celestron CG-5 GT GOTO mount no good?

First Light Optics - Celestron CG-5 GT GOTO

I've been looking through past archives and I've seen a link here which suggest you can take really good images and most other photo's taken through the ED80 Pro have been on an EQ5 or 6 mount without the HEQ5 or NEQ6?

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/173265-m33-m42.html

[Chris]

The stepper motors of the HEQ5 and 6 Pro are twice as accurate as the motors on the eq5 pro and the CG5, but if your only going to be imaging at short focal length such as with a ED80 or WO70 etc then the CG5 would be fine, I've heard that the CG5 is very noisy when slewing though so I'd go for the EQ5 pro out the two.

I think people are recommending the HEQ5-6 pro because if you get really into imaging you will want to eventually upgrade to it as its quite possibly all the mount you'll ever need:)

HTH

Chris

[asteele3]

When you say short focal length, I assume you mean F/5 to F/1? or is it the other way around? Although if it was shorter, the light would let in less and it would only be good for planet imaging?

Do you know where I could buy a second hand HEQ5? I don't really want to pay £900 for a tripod when the scope costs less than half that amount! I keep telling my parents and they're not budging!

[asteele3]

I've seen the SW HEQ5 mount without synscan and goto:

Skywatcher HEQ5 parallaktische Montierung mit Nachführung

I think they are still selling it, although I know FLO have said it's been discontinued!

Would the HEQ5 without GOTO and SynScan be any good for imaging? IE: would it still track the object?

[terrym2002uk]

If you spend £400 pound now, it wont be long before you've spent the other £500. So you may as do it all in one go

But seriously, it depends on what you want to do, or think you will end up wanting to do (sometimes two different things!). A good mount will always be worthwhile investment. A 200PDS on an HEQ5 would be a good serious entry point imho.

Also depending on your abilities, a Goto (synscan) wil get you off to a confident start.

[FLO]

I've seen the SW HEQ5 mount without synscan and goto:

I think they are still selling it, although I know FLO have said it's been discontinued!

Would the HEQ5 without GOTO and SynScan be any good for imaging? IE: would it still track the object?

The original HEQ5 model has been discontinued here in the UK but some European retailers still offer it. The more expensive HEQ5 PRO model with it's higher quality stepper motors and ST-4 autoguiding port is the better choice for imaging.

HTH,

Steve

[Chris]

When you say short focal length, I assume you mean F/5 to F/1? or is it the other way around? Although if it was shorter, the light would let in less and it would only be good for planet imaging?

Do you know where I could buy a second hand HEQ5? I don't really want to pay £900 for a tripod when the scope costs less than half that amount! I keep telling my parents and they're not budging!

f/5 refers to the focal ratio which is the focal length divided by the optical diameter e.g. a 200p would have a focal length of 1000mm and an aperture of 200mm so the focal ratio is 1000/200=5 so f/5, the lower your focal ratio the less exposure you need e.g. an f4 needs about half the exposure of an f5 to produce the same amount of data in an image.

Focal length is an important consideration when imaging because the longer your focal length is the more challenging it is to track the sky accurately for long exposures. e.g I image at a focal length of 388mm which allows me upto 180 seconds exposures unguided, but if I had a focal length of 1000mm I would only probably manage 90-120 seconds unguided.

Short focal lengths give a wide field of view which is good for galaxy clusters and nebula, and long focal lengths give a narrow field of view so objects appear bigger and with better resolution so these scopes are good for framing planets, individual galaxies, and planetary nebula.

There is no one scope which will cover all bases, some cover quite a few bases and I include the 200p as one of them, I wouldn't mind an f/5 or f/4 Newt to compliment my wide field imaging scope:)

As for where you can get an HEQ5 second hand, I would try UK astrobuy and sell, you should be able to pick up an HEQ5 pro for around 500 pounds, or you can get an old HEQ5 (black mount) like what I have, it doesn't have the high quality stepper motors of the pro and its got no Goto or ST4 port for guiding, but its sturdy and it will track well enough to get some good results, you can pick these up for about 250-300 pounds, and you can upgrade these to Pro with the upgrade kit further down the line.

hth

Chris