Heritage-90P Virtuoso 90mm

[Charlie_132]

Hello again everyone

I'm wanting to upgrade my 130p scope, Ive been looking at telescopes for a while tonight, would the Heritage-90P Virtuoso 90mm computerised Maksutov-telescope be a good step up from what i currently own ?

I would like to do astrophotography using a dslr (in the coming months) and webcam astronomy, the tracking built in would help me loads!

According to the description on scopes n skies, it can be used with aa batteries aswel as using it manually, this attracts me to it quite a lot

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/skywatcher/telescopes/heritage-90/maksutov-cassegrain-virtuoso.html

opinions ?

[cantab]

You'd need an equatorial mount for deep-sky imaging. For planetary imaging, the 90 Mak should do well, but why not just get a tracking mount to put your current scope on?

[Charlie_132]

I would get a tracking mount for my current scope. But I don't really like the idea of having a tripod, I really. Like the dob style mount, and with this one being pretty simple, just needing aa batteries, I could put them in when I want to do imaging and take them out when I'm done and use it manually, it also has better focal length aswel, the scope is more powerful then the 130p isn't it ?

[DOBBY]

As Cantab says..you need to start with the mount when thinking about astrophotography...for use with a dslr..you need an Equatorial mount...& it needs to be ultra sturdy.

[Charlie_132]

Would the tracking device built into this one not be good enough then ?

Would it be alright for webcam imaging and make my life a lot easier, and be able to provide better views of the sky for me visually ?

[ronin]

Visually you are collecting slightly less then half the light of the 130, so visually a fair bit worse.

Imaging yes you could put a web cam in and image the moon and planets.

Consider that Venus is completely cloud covered so it is always a fuzzy blob or cresant, Mars is notoriously bad although you should get something just quite small, Jupiter should be OK and Saturn is both smaller then Jupiter and further away so again small so do not expect images that will fill a wall or PC screen. So the moon and up to 4 planets (I would discount Venus).

For DSO and extended exposures it is the wrong mount.

I would also ask FLO or whoever if the Virtuoso can be used without batteries or power. I suspect that it may not be possible.

[Gregnat73]

I have the 90mm Mak Virtuoso and you can use it without power (you just loosen a couple of clamps and the mount can be moved by hand) I've not tried imaging with it though - I just use it as a quick grab and go scope from my apartment window when there's a gap in the clouds!! (it also works great with my PST solar scope!)