What to buy?

[Russell21]

Hi All Has anyone any feed back on the Celestron Nexstar 130slt or Celestron skymax 127 Money wise both are fine. Can anyone recommend one over the other. I am keen on photography and when I was a child I was really keen on the stars but I never did get a scope off santa!! I have a canon 650d and was hoping to combine both interests. Russ.

[hoops86]

I don’t know much about anything… however what ive learned recently is... if you have a desire to get into astrophotography as you have stated… you will want to get an equatorial mount! Both scopes you mention are on a alt/az mount as far as I know. Again as far as i know...alt/az mounts are useless for long exposure pictures.

[Russell21]

Thank you my friend I will look into that.

[Russell21]

Thanks for the heads up mate.

[valleyman]

The golden rule on astrophotography is getting the best mount you can afford. Something no smaller than a Skywatcher HEQ 5 Pro goto would be needed.

That will take most Optical tubes upto 250mm dia. So the mount will last you a life time. You can start photography with something as small as a Skywatcher 80 ED and get great wide angle views of nebula.

One thing to be aware of is getting into astro is expensive. Mount, Scope, guide scope, Brackets, Camera, guide camera all adds up.

So don't rush into this. Enjoy the scopes you have now and get lots of advice and experianc on Visual here before you go astro.

you can start astro with the setup you have now and attach your canon with a T ring and nose piece. Start with the Moon and planets, Guiding not needed. Try and photo objects close to Polaris, they don't move as much as objects close to the horzon, Use the Canon EOS software for remote shooting or use time delay on the shutter so the telescope is not vibrating when you take a shot.

Pat

Pat

[Russell21]

Thank`s Pat great advise mate, I will look at that mount Skywatcher HEQ 5 Pro goto .All this is new to me and I am not made of money, so yes I will take my time to buy things needed. Cheers

[valleyman]

I see you are from Caerphilly. Open Social groups in Forums and look for South Wales group. we have loads of members from the valleys you are welcome to join us.

Pat

[baggywrinkle]

The 650D is a very nice camera, I am really pleased with mine.

You can piggyback it on a mount (on top of the OTA or just use the mount, or it can be fixed at prime focus. As advised an EQ mount it best. EQ5 or higher will offer some future proofing for DSO work.

For planetary and lunar photography the two scopes you mentioned are fine.

The other thing about the 650D is that you can put it on a tripod and do widefield work without the scope.

I started with the 6SE and soon learnt that I really wanted a faster scope on an EQ mount for DSO work. Now I have both....and an unhappy Mrs Baggy ;-)

[impactcrater]

the skymax is sold under the 'skywatcher' name...a subdivision of 'celestron'...I suppose it is their 'no-name' brand and 'celestron' is their upmarket name. there may also be slightly better optics on the celestron so I would compare that. to open a can of worms, I think that celestial photography is for the professional with a really big telescope. I would chose the best goto scope you can afford. viewing the night sky with your own eyes is the wonder of telescopy...