Nexstar 8SE or Meade LX80 8 inch for Photoastronomy

[Relayer]

Hi All

I haven't bought a telescope for about 12 years and indeed my photography hobby has taken more of a lead over the last 5. However I would now like to combine the two and could do with some advice on what to buy. My budget is about £1500 (or less) and I like the idea of the GoTo technology and after a little research the above two seem to fit the bill, although the Nexstar appears to be considerable more difficult to Polar Align and indeed the mount may not be up tp the longer exposure times. Am I going down the right route or should I be looking elsewhere??

Your thoughts and advice would be much appreciated.

[cantharis]

The Nexstar series come on an AltAz mount which is pretty useless for long exposures due to field rotation - but you can now buy a gizmo which rotates your camera to compensate. There is also a fiddly wedge that you can use to imitate a GEM mount - but have read adverse criticism of this.

The LX80 can be configured as a GEM mount, so would at first sight appear to be the more appropriate choice. I am sure others will soon put their views. Good luck.

[Cath]

DON'T get an alt-az mount (the 8SE comes with an alt-az mount) if you want to do astro photography, you need to an equatotial mount for that.

You can use alt-az mounts for long exposure astro photography but you need to use a camera rotator with them, which adds complexity.

You can use alt-az mounts for fast exposure stuff though - such as planetary photography, although the celestron mount that comes with the 8SE is terrible, so not much good for anything in my view. I have the same alt-az mount with my 6SE.

[Relayer]

As I suspected Nexstar is off the list. Any other suggestions??

Many thanks

[ollypenrice]

My suggestion is not to buy an SCT at all. I think it's a bad choice for deep sky AP unless you are dead sure that you want to image at long focal lengths. Long focal lengths need very accurate autoguiding and therefore demand mounts that stretch or break your budget on their own. Check the imaging sections on this and other forums and you'll see that the fork and wedge 'complete SCT systems' are hardly ever represented. This is not an accident. It's because GEMs carrying small refractors are far more productive. The SCT would need the F6.3 reducer and even this will not cover a DSLR sensor perfectly cleanly.

For budget DS imaging I'd suggest an ED80 OTA (available from FLO without visual accessories), flattener-reducer, an HEQ5 and an autoguider, (probably a finder guider to keep the cost down and a QHY5 running in free PHD software.)

Long focal length imaging is fun if you can afford the kit (which I can't but my collaborator can!) while at shorter focal lengths there is enough to keep you happy for a lifetime without all the hassles of things not quite working.

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2212817717&k=XPG9S7S

[E621Keith]

The Meade LX80 seems to have some QC issue. A Skywatcher HEQ5 will be a better choice.

The Chinese are much more experienced in making fairly good quality mounts than Mexican.

[Relayer]

Thanks for the advice. Have taken a look at the HEQ5 which looks great and may even now put a little more in the pot for the EQ6 plus an 8 inch scope.

[jonathan]

Thanks for the advice. Have taken a look at the HEQ5 which looks great and may even now put a little more in the pot for the EQ6 plus an 8 inch scope.

I wouldn't say an 8 inch scope was necessary for astrophotography, if anything this is going to test the capability of your mount. A small high quality 80mm refractor will be light and allow the mount to track very easily, with minimal disruption from breezes or other vibrations exaggerated by a heavy load. Look at the NEQ6 SynTrek or SynScan.