Astrophotography; Am I heading down the correct path to success?

[PaPa Doc]

I consider myself as a beginner in astronomy, I certainly am learning lots of new and very useful information.

Recently I bought a Celestron Nexstar 5 SE telescope. Even though the 5'' Schmidt Cassegrain is perfect for viewing through, I am very interested in Astrophotography, so I am thinking of buying a Lunt 80 ED with a HEQ 5 mount with an Orion Magnificent mini autoguider or a Sky-Watcher Black Diamond ED 120 OTA with the HEQ 5 Synscan mount & a Celestron 80 mm guidescope package.

If anyone has any suggestions, thoughts or comments about the equipment I am thinking of buying, I would certainly appreciate your opinions &/or suggestions.

Cheers!

[Steep]

Don't Lunt make solar scopes?

[PARTY MARTY]

Hi PapaDoc! I've just come back from Canada near your way mate! I was at Medicine Hat a month ago! Yes if speak to Wade or Ken at All Star telescopes at Didbury, they have the Lunt ED apos ranging from 70mm, 80mm and 102mm. They are fantastic scopes for imaging and for the price, I paid $499 for the 80mm one which easy to lug about in it's own case, comes with a Crayston 2" focuser which can be rotated, as a tractible dew shield and the optics are mulTI coated and it's light enough to mounted be set-up even on a EQ-5 mount. I haven't managed to image through it, but I can tell visually it's superb and the price it's truly awesome considering most ED's cost around $600 to $800 mark?

[swag72]

As a beginner a couple of years ago, I purchased an HEQ5 with a SW 120ED Black Diamond. I was planning on using it with a DSLR, since I already had one. If I'm honest the 120ED really wasn't the best beginner scope, I would have been far better placed with an ED80. Perhaps an ED80 and an NEQ6 would come to the same budget as the HEQ5 and the 120ED, and that is certainly something I would go for instead.

[johnrt]

+1 for the ED80 over a bigger sized scope. Remember in imaging aperture means next to nothing (unlike observing) and the f/ratio of your optics is much more important.

Mount wise I would go with the biggest and baddest you can afford / handle. HEQ5 minimum or EQ6 if you can.

[Steve Ward]

+1 for the ED80.

[ndastgir]

+1 for 80 ED or any other 80mm APO refractor. I second Sara and John on this. invest more in the mount.

I too am saving up for a NEQ6 pro. In astroimaging the equipment weight just keeps growing. An EQ3-2 on a pier is now quite wobbly!

[ronin]

Shouldn't you be considering a apo triplet for astrophotograohy?

I know the ED 80's are good but I still read of small amounts of CA on them.

I know that every imager I have met, on a course and from the local clubs, have been using a triplet, often with an ED 80 as a guide scope.

As you are in Canada then perhaps look at the William Optics GTF-102, if you wanted a 102 in preference to an 80, it has a built in flattener which would be necessary for you to purchase anyway for a scope.

[ollypenrice]

If you're new to AP I'd just suggest this; be sure you know why you are choosing a particular size of instrument. Many newcomers feel that a larger scope must be somehow better than a smaller one, it must 'gather more light,' no? No, not in any useful sense.

The two numbers that matter are focal ratio and focal length. Aperture alone is irrelevant.

Focal length determines image scale or what will fit on your chip. You can model focal lengths and chip sizes on the sky in planetaria or with the Free CCD Calculator

which Googles. Long focal lengths require much, much more accurate autoguiding than short ones. Good autoguiding does not always come straight from the box...

Focal ratio determines exposure time, which increases as the square of the F ratio, so it increases alarmingly fast. (If you are going to start with a DSLR a fast F ratio is really important because these cameras are noisy and are also time limited by thermal noise so you can't just bump up to 30 minute sub exposures as you can with CCD.)

If you'd like to make life easy to start with go for a fast F ratio and short FL so guiding will be easier, wind will affect you less and you'll need a clear sky but not necessarily a clear sky with good seeing as well.

Olly

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I bought a fast triplet 80mm for exactly the reasons stated above. I also intend to use some fast Zeiss SLR lenses (1.4/85mm, 2.8/135mm and 3.5/200 in particular). Of course, since I got a camera to attach to these optics the skies have been near solid cloud

[PaPa Doc]

Thank You to ev1 who responded. I appreciate your opinions & advice, & I will definitely take all the advice given some thoughtful consideration before I make my final decision. I see I have a little more thinking to do till then. Once again, thanks for the help, it's greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[stem1989]

again the ED80 on the NEQ6 is the way you want to go.

[tonedeaf]

again the ED80 on the NEQ6 is the way you want to go.

this!

i´ve gone that way....and i don´t regret it