Observing and Imaging

[darknightsky]

Hi Guys,

For my first scope I'm looking at buying a Skywatcher evostar 90 with an EQ2 mount, and hoping to get a canon DSLR camera and ideally a star tracking mount for the camera

my questions are:

1. Is the evostar 90 a good beginners scope?
2. what telescope mount should I get for astrophotography, will the eq2 suffice?
3. any recommendation for a star tracking mount for the camera only?
4. canon camera recomendations under £500 EOS 1100d?

Thank you very much in advance for any advice

Rob

[lensman57]

Hi Guys,

For my first scope I'm looking at buying a Skywatcher evostar 90 with an EQ2 mount, and hoping to get a canon DSLR camera and ideally a star tracking mount for the camera

my questions are:

1. Is the evostar 90 a good beginners scope?
2. what telescope mount should I get for astrophotography, will the eq2 suffice?
3. any recommendation for a star tracking mount for the camera only?
4. canon camera recomendations under £500 EOS 1100d?

Thank you very much in advance for any advice

Rob

Hi Rob,

The scope is a good beginner's scope if your interest is mainly observing the Moon,  Saturn , Jupiter or the very bright DSO objects. the scope is F10 I belive which is very slow for imaging, it is also only 90 mm of aperture ( limited light gathering power ) which is only good on the objects I mentioned. The mount you have in mind is of no use for AP unless you add motors to it. For imaging of any sort you need a driven mount and although I have seen some beutiful work done on camera taracking mounts  I am not personally a fan of them.  My suggestion to you is to hold back and do a bit more research and get a proper mount . The most economical way of dealing with this is to go for a newtonian as these are usually fast with  large apertures for the money they do both observing and imaging if they are fixed on a good mount.  Simple achros such the scope you mentined are not suitable for AP due to excessive CA. You have not mentioned what your budget is but by the sound the choices you liste  it is not a small one so you have to do a bit of research and asking around for advice. You can buy a modified Canon either from cheap astrophotography or astronomiser for a lot less than £500.00.

Regards,

A.G

[darknightsky]

Thanks for the excellent advice, I was thinking about a skywatcher 200p but wanted something a bit more portable so I'm still kind of torn between that and the evostar.

[lensman57]

Thanks for the excellent advice, I was thinking about a skywatcher 200p but wanted something a bit more portable so I'm still kind of torn between that and the evostar.

I don'y have one myself but a 200p on a decent mount is a quite a scope, i'd go for the PDS just to make sure sure that you can achieve focus with a DSLR. You also need to budget for a few extras such as filters and so on.

Regards,

A.G

[darknightsky]

Thanks

[Astrosurf]

This is a really tricky subject! If money were no object then there wouldn't be any problem but that's rarely the case, sigh. I use my 200p (no probs with achieving focus with a DSLR) for small DSOs and planets. I have what is considered the minimum mount for decent AP which is the SW HEQ5 Pro. It's not cheap! They do come up for sale second hand though. The mount is nearly at its weight capacity with the 200P. You also need very still nights as the scope acts like a sail! The long focal length makes it register even very small movements, but the results are great if things go well.

I use my 72mm frac for larger nebulae. It's not too slow at F6 and I don't bother with a reducer.

I'm not knowledgeable on cheaper mounts but others have done well with lower-range, motor-driven ones. I'm sure someone will be along soon to advise.

There's also the wonderful Astrotrac which you attach your camera (with lens) to and even a small refractor.

I can't advise on a camera. I used to have a 1000D which was good but noisy. I now have a 600D which is wonderful. I'll leave camera advice to others!

Alexxx