AP Setup With A DSLR

[Jon Sales]

Hi all,

Were thinking of moving to Scotland in the next few months if I can get work up there.

30 miles from the middle of Galloway Forest Park dark sky site to be precise.

I am looking at a setup for my Nikon D5100 for some proper Astrophotography.

I have been looking at either the Celestron CG5 mount or the Skywatcher HEQ5 Synscan mount and 80-100mm ED refractor of some sort.

Any thoughts and help would be appreciated.

Jon

[red dwalf]

I would certainly go for a heq5 and a short focal length 80mm refractor for fast widefield imaging,

You'll need a guide scope and guide camera for tracking long exposures, cheap wecam and a st 80 scope will work fine.

[davefrance]

Hi all,

Were thinking of moving to Scotland in the next few months if I can get work up there.

30 miles from the middle of Galloway Forest Park dark sky site to be precise.

I am looking at a setup for my Nikon D5100 for some proper Astrophotography.

I have been looking at either the Celestron CG5 mount or the Skywatcher HEQ5 Synscan mount and 80-100mm ED refractor of some sort.

Any thoughts and help would be appreciated.

Jon

I purchased a Skywatcher Equinox 80ED packaged with HEQ5 few months ago, very pleased with the combination and the price was much lwer than purchasing separately.

[PhotoGav]

I am using an HEQ5 Pro with Skywatcher 80ED and focal reducer (package from FLO), guiding with QHY5-II through finder scope with adaptor (from Modern Astronomy), all running off a laptop with EQMod through the Synscan handset in PC Direct Mode and guided with PHD. Camera control with BackyardEOS and APT. I love this set up and am starting to get some results that I am proud of. It's taken since September / October to start to get the hang of it all.

The one thing though that has made the biggest difference to my images is modding my Canon EOS 60D...

Good luck with the move and the AP adventure!

[ollypenrice]

With a DSLR a fast F ratio is a huge bonus.

Olly

[lensman57]

Hi,

I also think that an Equinox 80 will be great with a DSLR, you could also add a 0.8X FF/FR  to bring it down to a fast F5 either  with a Televue  2008 FF/FR or an Altair 0.8X FF/FR . As for the mount, well  I have an HEQ5 pro now but used to have an EQ5 Pro SynScan and I had no problem guiding 600s regularly with an ED80 and an Atik CCD. I also have an Altair wave 80 mm ED that weigths a Ton and EQ5 had no problem guiding the heavy scope, 50mm guider and the guide camera plus the CCD, so there are options.

Regards,

A.G

[Jon Sales]

Thanks for the replies.

Got s savings pot put by now