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telescope newbie


Chast

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Hi,

New to stargazing with a telescope, although i have been gazing at the night sky for more than 30 years on and off.

Got a small 3 inch reflector (National Geographic) as an unexpected Xmas pressie and have been blown away with what i can see, despite the depressingly low number of clear nights since then. I am already thinking of upgrading to a beefier scope. I was thinking of the Skywatcher 200P as it seems to be a popular choice and gets good write ups. My ultimate aim is to get into astrophotography (already into photography) however budget dictates that i go for the OTA own its own and build a dob mount myself in the first instance. I know that a driven EQ mount would be preferable for photography.

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

Located in West of Scotland.

Cheers.

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Hi mate and welcome to SGL :)

The 200p is a fantastic scope and even stock on the eq5 can be used for basic planetary and lunar AP. Check out my flickr link in my signature to see what a noob can do with that setup :)

All my pics are taken using the stock eyepieces and Barlow that came with the scope and my DSLR.

For deep space photography you definitely need a driven mount but you can still do planetary and lunar AP with a manual mount or a dobsonion it just takes patience and a bit of effort.

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Hello and welcome to SGL. You say that you are already into photography so i assume you have got a DSLR. So why not concentrate on getting a half decent mount with your money and look at widefield astrophotography to begin with. Then as money permits look at getting a decent OTA.

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Hi and welcome to SGL - As am imager only, I can suggest buying the book 'Making Every Photon Count' that will really give you a heads up on what you need and why. Many make the mistake of doing daytime photography and thinking that the skills are interchangeable (I was as guilty as anyone else in this!) and this is far from the case.

Imaging is all about the Mount, mount, mount. You need a decent equatorial mount - Perhaps this is the way to start, get an HEQ5 for example and use your existing kit. If you have a longish focal length lens (say 200-300mm) you'll get some great images, as many nebula's are quite large.

Hope that helps a little

Look forward to seeing you around :smiley:

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