advice on focal reducer for Skymax 102

[Erquy]

Hi,

I am a new comer (on this forum and amator astronomy, just receive my first telescope this week!). I have a skymax 102 (synscan goto) and I would like to experiment a bit on deep sky object photography (EOS canon in prime focus). I know very well this scope is more for planetary and not deep sky, but I would like to give it some trials for imaging on some "easy" bright object like galaxies (M31, M81) , nebula (M42) ... As I understand from other posts, a focal reducer would greatly help out (also interested in it anyhow for enlarging FOV with my existing eyepieces I have 10 and 25 mm -instead of buying new EP with lower magnification-, meaning 2 possible/use/advantages with 1 product as I am concerned).

So any advice on adequate focal reducer for that telescope would be most welcome. To give some ideas of the questions I have !!

- would it really make such a huge difference with such telescope (possibility to reduce by 2-3 exposure time for equivalent result)? Any big difference to expect on that telescope between 0,85, 0,63, 0,5, 0,33 reducer? What shall be right one thinking about what I want to do (main easy deep sky objects). Any benefit of combined reducer + field corrector/flattener in same product on that type of MAK scope (as some product combines both, but then of course more expansive) -I am not sure at all, but my understanding is that corrector/flattener may be more required on newtonion or on larger scope?

- seen a rather broad range of offer in cost (as low as from 40€ up to 200€ as I can spot on various webshop), I guess quality is proportional, but thinking of the telescope I have today and intented use, I would say I don´t need a "ferrari" engine/"overdesigned focal reducer" on my decent, relatively all around basic starter telescope

- any drawback of focal reducer to expect ? (I could only find about the benefits, but nothing about drawback -some loss in quality of images -photo or visual-? ??

- for visual observation to enlarge FOV/go into lower maginification, what´s better to consider: 1) a focal reducer 2) a bigger eyepiece (thinking that prices at the end of the day are in the same family range... my personal feeling is buying 1 focal reducer -which could be used with my 2 EP, meaning equiavelent of total 4 EP- may be more advantageous than buying 2 new eyepiece (and I would be ready to pay for a very good focal reducer at 150€, rather than 2 mid range EP of 75€ each. Is my reasoning right?

Thanks in advance for input!

[Guy Wells]

Im in nearly the same situation...anyone out there know?

[Erquy]

Hi

For your info, in the meantime i moved to a celestron C8 with focal reducer... But still enjoying very much the skymax as grab&go!

But never got any input on my question above nor found some directions (apart moving on into a sct)