Goto telescope recommendation

[Bloaterfish]

Hello, I want to get back into astronomy and was wondering about the best

telescope to get. I would prefer it to be a goto telescope and was considering

the Meade ETX125, my local telescope shop appears to be pushing me into this

option. However I have heard bad things about the fork mount and that it is not

that suitable for astrophotography. Does anyone have an opinion on this? I would

be grateful for any help before parting with money, many thanks and kind

regards.

[bobgunnis]

Hi I had the Meade ETX 125 AT and altough a good scope for viewing, I find out a nightmare for astrophotogrpahy. Your better off getting a decent EQ Goto mount in my humble opionion

[bobgunnis]

Oh and the focal length is not good for deep sky objects. It is a good observing scope but not for imaging ~~ just my opinion

[cantharis]

The fork mount is just a version of the AltAz mount. For astrophotography you need an EQ mount.

[Chris]

If your even considering Astrophography you might wan't t check out the HEQ5 pro goto mount, it might be all the mount you ever need and you can chop and change the scopes on it to suit different needs when you want to.

[RikM]

There are different targets with AP that need different equipment.

If you are wanting to do high frame rate lunar/planetary AP with a webcam, then the ETX would be just the ticket.

If you are thinking about long exposure deep sky with a DSLR or CCD camera then you don't want either a Mak-Cass or a fork mount. Something like a small refractor on an HEQ5 would be recommended.

[Chris]

Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed you meant deep sky imaging when equally you could have meant planetary imaging, as Rik says in that case:)