AP DSLR set up.

[Jon Sales]

Researching a set up for my DSLR to get deeper into Astrophotography.

I want a reasonably transportable setup as I'll be taking it out a lot to dark sky sites on the South Downs as well as trips to Galloway Forest dark sky site in Scotland.

I'm after an ED refractor decent enough for DSO's and a goto mount/tripod.

Been looking at the Celestron CG5 or Skywatcher HEQ5 as they both seem sturdy enough for what I want it for.

DSLR weighs about 1kg at the most and won't be putting anything on the mount other than the ED.

Anyone got any good suggestions?

[jgs001]

I'd suggest the HEQ5 with SW ED80, a great combination, and will get you going really well. I'd also recommend getting Steve's book, "Making Every Photon Count"

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/pro-series/skywatcher-evostar-80ed-pro-heq5-pro.html

This will give you the leeway to add a guiding setup with the 80ed, as you'll be within the mount load capacity. This is pretty much (although I have the Celestron version of the scope) what I'm using.

[Jon Sales]

Thanks John, been looking at the 80 or was wondering whether I should stretch the budget and look at a 100 odd mm.

[jgs001]

Hmm... You could do, the 100ed looks like it's supplied with the reducer... however, just looking at the base scopes (as a reducer/flattener is recommended anyway), the 80ed is f/7.5, and the 100ed is f/9. To put that into perspective, a 5 minute exposure on the 80ed will need a 7.5 minute exposure on the 100ed to get the equivalent exposure levels. The extra aperture will help if you wanted to do lunar/planetary, as would the longer focal length, but for deep sky, you're wanting a faster optical system, rather than slower. The 80ed is also a nice small scope, so easily setup and balanced, I've not seen the 100ed, but it's going to be longer.