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Want to start astro imaging - £2k budget

sixfoottwo

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sixfoottwo

sixfoottwo

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I have looked at the Celestron Advanced 80 EdgeHD, but have also been advised that an EQ6 mount with a  scope such as an opticstar ED80S may be the best way to start, as the mount will do me as I upgrade or expand equipment in the future.

I have read the AVX Celeston mount is easy to set up, and I will be travelling  to various locations.  

Any help or further recommendations would be appreciated.

Also, what extra equipment do you consider essential?

I have a canon 60D camera, and once I gain more experience, will probably buy a CCD next year.

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nmoushon

nmoushon

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The AVX and EQ6 have a pretty big gap between them. For the budget I would get the EQ6 with a good APO refractor. This will allow you to upgrade to the 8" Edge and still image with the same mount. If you went with the AVX you would not be able to image with the 8" Edge. Well you could but it would be very very difficult and not worth the trouble. With purchasing a small APO you will be able to get a smaller learning curve and master guiding. You will need to master guiding before you jump into the long FL on the 8" Edge or you will have a very steep learning curve. The money saved will let you jump straight into guiding with the APO frac and possibly get a good jump start on the CCD.

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GuillermoBarrancos

GuillermoBarrancos

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The AVX and EQ6 have a pretty big gap between them. For the budget I would get the EQ6 with a good APO refractor. This will allow you to upgrade to the 8" Edge and still image with the same mount. If you went with the AVX you would not be able to image with the 8" Edge. Well you could but it would be very very difficult and not worth the trouble. With purchasing a small APO you will be able to get a smaller learning curve and master guiding. You will need to master guiding before you jump into the long FL on the 8" Edge or you will have a very steep learning curve. The money saved will let you jump straight into guiding with the APO frac and possibly get a good jump start on the CCD.

Ehh what? The AVX Mount can easily handle the 8inch SCT for imaging. Come on now. Even the older CG5 could do it.

Now.... if we start putting on an 11inch SCT. Yeah that would be a different matter.

The Edge 800 HD (8inch) is only 5,9 kg!  The AVX can handle 14kg load for oberving and 11kg for imaging. Same capacity as the HEQ5 Pro. The AVX Mount actually offers better stability, as it comes with 2inch tripod.

The OP wants a portable Mount. The NEQ6 Pro is far from portable. It's a Heavy beast.

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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The 1st purchase on the list has to be "every photon counts" a great intro to this facinating hobby.

You mentioned travelling so as well as the standard HEQ5 ED80 recomendation it might be worth looking at the Astrotrac and Vixen Polarie options too.

The key thing is that a DSLR requires a fast scope (or camera lens) to give its best and although i might get shot down in flames the ED80 is a tad slow but gives excellent results with a CCD so bear that in mind.

Planetry imaging requires long FL and idealy a webcam but it can be done with a DSLR.

Alan

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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Ehh what? The AVX Mount can easily handle the 8inch SCT for imaging. Come on now. Even the older CG5 could do it.

Now.... if we start putting on an 11inch SCT. Yeah that would be a different matter.

The Edge 800 HD (8inch) is only 5,9 kg!  The AVX can handle 14kg load for oberving and 11kg for imaging. Same capacity as the HEQ5 Pro. The AVX Mount actually offers better stability, as it comes with 2inch tripod.

The OP wants a portable Mount. The NEQ6 Pro is far from portable. It's a Heavy beast.

It's not all about weight - in this instance it's the focal length that is difficult to handle, not the weight. A long focal length requires a very accurate mount that is accurately polar aligned and well guided as very small errors in tracking will completely ruin the image. An example of this would be that a HEQ-5 could easily handle my OMC200 in terms of weight, but to guide the 4m of focal length it has you would need a very expensive mount.

Some discussion on it here

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GuillermoBarrancos

GuillermoBarrancos

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It's not all about weight - in this instance it's the focal length that is difficult to handle, not the weight. A long focal length requires a very accurate mount that is accurately polar aligned and well guided as very small errors in tracking will completely ruin the image. An example of this would be that a HEQ-5 could easily handle my OMC200 in terms of weight, but to guide the 4m of focal length it has you would need a very expensive mount.

Some discussion on it here

Sigh. If you do DSO imaging with the EdgeHD800 (or any other SCT for that matter), you will add the 0,63 FR to bring the focal ratio Down to F6,3.

And so far, the reviews of the new VX Mount have been pretty good! With excellent error correction so far.

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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Thank you. My sincerest apologies to the OP, I definitely did not mean to provide any unhelpful advice / tangential discussion ;).

On that note, I will leave this discussion for more experienced astro-photographers :).

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GuillermoBarrancos

GuillermoBarrancos

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Thank you. My sincerest apologies to the OP, I definitely did not mean to provide any unhelpful advice / tangential discussion ;).

On that note, I will leave this discussion for more experienced astro-photographers :).

And I didn't mean to start a fight either.

The OP wanted a portable Mount and was interested in the EdgeHD 800.

Then someone came in here saying he cannot image With the 8inch SCT on the Advanced VX Mount.  Which is simply not true.

Sure... it might not be the easiest Scope to start out with, like you said. But a NEQ6 Pro Mount will not make it any easier compared to the Advanced VX. The Challenge remains the same. Only that he ends up with a much heavier, far less portable Mount.

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nmoushon

nmoushon

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Ehh what? The AVX Mount can easily handle the 8inch SCT for imaging. Come on now. Even the older CG5 could do it.

Now.... if we start putting on an 11inch SCT. Yeah that would be a different matter.

The Edge 800 HD (8inch) is only 5,9 kg!  The AVX can handle 14kg load for oberving and 11kg for imaging. Same capacity as the HEQ5 Pro. The AVX Mount actually offers better stability, as it comes with 2inch tripod.

The OP wants a portable Mount. The NEQ6 Pro is far from portable. It's a Heavy beast.

You are right. I miss read it as pounds instead of kg.....man i need more coffee. Sorry for any confusion I caused.

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Luke

Luke

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Sigh. If you do DSO imaging with the EdgeHD800 (or any other SCT for that matter), you will add the 0,63 FR to bring the focal ratio Down to F6,3.

Do you mean the regular Celestron 0.63 reducer? That one is not suitable for the Edge HD's optics. I've recently bought the Celestron F7 reducer specifically for the EdgeHD 800, it's a chunky item! They quote the focal length with it as 1.422m, though I guess that's if your spacing is spot on!

I've not used it with the reducer for DSO imaging yet, it's had one brief outing on the moon to pull the focal length down for webcam imaging. With this pesky wind and lack of clear nights, I'm not sure I'll get a chance to use it for DSO imaging this season! That's another advantage of something like an ED80 - it will cope better with wind, which is a big plus these days!! :eek:  Just come in from fixing my fence...

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GuillermoBarrancos

GuillermoBarrancos

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Do you mean the regular Celestron 0.63 reducer? That one is not suitable for the Edge HD's optics. I've recently bought the Celestron F7 reducer specifically for the EdgeHD 800, it's a chunky item! They quote the focal length with it as 1.422m, though I guess that's if your spacing is spot on!

I've not used it with the reducer for DSO imaging yet, it's had one brief outing on the moon to pull the focal length down for webcam imaging. With this pesky wind and lack of clear nights, I'm not sure I'll get a chance to use it for DSO imaging this season! That's another advantage of something like an ED80 - it will cope better with wind, which is a big plus these days!! :eek:  Just come in from fixing my fence...

Yes you are right. The Edge series have their own reducers. Quite a bit more expensive too. :eek:

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GuillermoBarrancos

GuillermoBarrancos

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Thanks for the interest and the comments.

It just shows how difficult a decision it is to decide what to buy.  I will certainly invest in the book, and continue talking to people and reading the forum.

You really can't go wrong buying the EdgeHD 800 with the Advanced VX Mount. It's a very good package deal!

You can just start with planetary imaging, without requiring an immediate Investment in expensive focal reducer and guiding Equipment.

Just get a Nice ED quality barlow and a planetary camera and you are set to go.

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ronin

ronin

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SF2, I tend to always tell a person to try and visit a club or two that has an imaging section and talk with them, look arond and see  what is used. One setup will likely make "more sense" to you then another. For absolutely no reason.

There is in the imaging side a wide range of options. You can start from something like an EQ5 with motors, add a DSLR and a 70mm ED scope and get going (seen this at Sidmouth Imagers), up to a fixed piller witha 20" SCT, cooled ccd with a full guidance system (Nik S uses this or similar). One setup you may get the bits for £500-600 to other you are looking at £20,000++.

At a recent talk I think the person used an 80mm ED to image and a 100mm ED to guide, the 80ED gave better images they said so the 100ED was the guide. They were also a little pointed on what imaging was, to replicate what you may see can simply mean better equipment - you say £2000 budget, they talked of more then that on one camera. Imaging in a serious approach is expensive.

Here in Cambridge someone is selling a good imaging mount, it is £6,500 and that is used. So you can tell that there is a very wide range of options.

You can also tell there is an equally wide range of opinions.

Have a look through clubs in Cheshire http://fedastro.org.uk/fas/members/ and see if any are close and have an imaging group, there are 5 clubs in Cheshire.

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dmahon

dmahon

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I started with £2k.

I went with:

HEQ5

Equinox 80

TRF-2008

Canon 450D

T ring adapter

Light pollution filter

50mm finderscope

QHY5 camera

Finder guider adapter from modern astronomy

Get what you can second hand from astro buy/sell as you'll probably either give up or upgrade within 12 months. Every photon counts is a good read.

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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I have joined a group and hope to join them, weather permitting, to stargaze next week. Hope to learn a lot then.

Thats a good choice AP can take many forms from quick 2 min subs with a camera lens or small APO which can be done in an hour to long subs sessions that take all night you need to find whats right for you.

Alan

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swag72

swag72

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Do you have the book 'Making Every Photon Count'? It's something of a bible for DSO imagers. A good starting point and will really help you understand how best to spend you money and why. I started out with £2k, oh how I wish I'd stopped there!!! :grin: but it was impossible, the lure was too great!!

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Jon Sales

Jon Sales

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I'm also looking for an imaging setup for my Nikon D5100.

Been looking formthe last 3 monthhs or so whilst I save up. I want mine fairly portable as we visit family in Scotland a lot who live 20 miles from the centre of Galloway forest dark sky park.

Think I might buy the new Celestron CG5 replacement or similar and an ED80 refractor to get started with.

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