Advice on what setup to get

[iksose7]

If you can afford it then the HEQ5 and ED80 is the way to go, and its a bonus if you can afford the guide scope/cam. If i was you thats what i would personally go for with your budget.

If you do end up being a bit short with your budget i would look for a second hand guide scope/camera on AstroBuySell. I see half decent scopes going for £100-200 on there quite regularly, and the guide scope doesnt really have to be anything to write home about in terms of quality optics/looks.

Also, if you ever did find that astropotgraphy wasnt for you, the HEQ5/ED80 is a combo that will always sell! I scroll right past anything less when i'm browsing ads (not that i have any money to spend on new gear anyway  just dreaming )

Callum

[ollypenrice]

To return briefly to collimation, I don't think an imaging-standard collimation can be reliably acheived with a laser. I also think it's worth sayng that collimation is easy when everything is basically right but when something is basically wrong, like the secondary offset, tilt at the focuser or twists in the vanes then it does get more complicated.

Galaxies; M31, M33 and M101 are thoroughly satisfying at short focal length. And that's yer lot! There are some more which will not be displeasing but they'll be small. M51, M106 and a not very extensive 'etc.'  After that you really need to step up to a long focal length (heading towards 2 metres or beyond) with all that this entails. That is, guiding will become far more challenging and your F ratio will be very slow unless you have a very large scope - which means a larger mount.

On the cheerful side, those three large-on-the-sky galaxies are all worth over 20 hours each so that should keep you going for a while... 

Olly

[laser_jock99]

To return briefly to collimation, I don't think an imaging-standard collimation can be reliably acheived with a laser.

Olly

.....although I can do it every time (on four different scopes) in minutes. That said - I'm not using one of those budget e-bay lasers (I tried two of those and frankly they were bin worthy). If going down the Newtonian route get a calibrated, 2" dia laser like a Howie Glatter or similar. Learn to use it properly and sub millimetre collimation should be a breeze.

[iksose7]

Like Olly said above, there are not very many galaxies that would fill the FOV of the ED80. But having said that, i am starting to like widefield galaxy images quite a lot. My refractor only has a focal length of 805mm and combined with a Canon DSLR, i cant get too close to them although closer than the ED80. But if you go deep on a widefield galaxy image it can turn out very nice. Especially if there is flux nebula or maybe a hidden star stream to be found, although these can be hard to capture with a DSLR. The Pinwheel galaxy for example can double in size from what most people capture if you can go deep enough on it.

Use this calculator and plonk in the ED80 and your DSLR and you can get an idea of how an image may look with a certain target. Dont just image the Messier galaxies like most people tend to do. Do a bit of research about the NGC and IC or even Arp and Abel catalogs. I'm not saying the Messier galaxies are boring, but it does get a bit stale when everybody is fixated on them, there are billions of galaxies up there and it surprising how often you see people imaging the same dozen over and over, its nice to see lesser imaged galaxies being shown off! But i do understand that not everybodys skies are up to the challenge.

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fovcalc.php

I know you havent even got your kit yet, i'm getting a bit ahead of myself!   Just something to think about in the future.

Callum

[Cpaulo]

Can I ask why the HEQ5 won in the end? If it has a slightly lower payload capacity?

I think I've been sold on the ED80 I've been looking at the fov available through it and it seems exactly what I'm after. I may save up for a reflector in the mean time and get to grips with the ED80 first as well as see if it for me.

Sorry davemorl dodgy Internet here in southern Italy, the only reason the HEQ5 won out over the AVX was a tried and test track record on the HEQ5s part. Thousands of people use them coupled with the QHY5L. If I run into problems there's going to be some body on here that knows exactly how to troubleshoot any issues, I don't think the same can be said for the AVX. Not very adventurous I know but I've spent close to £1700 recently and I feel safer sticking with the tried and tested.

Hope that helps.

[Cpaulo]

Oops can't edit yet, not enough posts. Payload is not too much of an issue as I've already calculated the weight of all the combined items on my shopping list and added 10%, still well under the 11kg limit imaging limit. Additionally most of my intended targets are nebula and galaxies on the messier list, mostly doable with the 80ED and some patience.

[davemorl]

Thank you everyone for your help. I've come to a decision of the ED80 and the HEQ5 for the time being once I get to grips with it and know it's what I want I'll get myself an autoguider.

Thanks again and I'm sure I'll be back on here in a few weeks with some problem that I can't figure out. Ha!

Thanks again

Dave

[Ikonnikov]

Regarding guiding I can recommend the Stellarvue or Altair Astro 60mm finder with the dedicated Altair precision camera focuser for a very fast and compact/lightweight guide-scope good for imaging at up to ~1200mm focal length (I use it routinely for 430 and 1000mm).

Paul

[StevieO]

Hi, Dave,

I'm just a few months ahead of you, and had the same aspirations and budget.

Since my ambitions lay in imaging, I plumped for the Skywatcher Evostar ED100 Pro refractor with the AVX. Although I can't compare either of these with other equipment, I can say I'm delighted with both. The scope is well specified with 2-speed focusing and comes with a sturdy aluminium case, all for £630ish with a .85 reducer. It looks good too. The mount cost about the same and performs brilliantly, although for exposures above a minute or so you're probably going to need guiding, so build that into your budget. I'm up to 5 minute exposures so far, with nice round stars, the limiting factor probably being the quality of my polar alignment rather than the equipment.

There's an endless number of bits and pieces to budget for: eyepieces, camera mounts, camera, barlow, dew heater (even for a small refractor) etc etc. 

Planetary imaging requires different techniques (eg. webcam and video files) to deep sky (DSLR or CCD, still images),

There are loads of, mainly free, software apps to download which will help you. So far I've got:

PHD2 for guiding

Canon Utilities for controlling DSLR

Deep Sky Stacker for stacking/pre-processing

Adobe DNG converter for converting Canon MOV files to DNG which are acceptable to DSS

Registax 6 for stacking AVI files of planets etc.

I also have Photoshop which has a cost.

I suspect that using the same scope for observing and imaging may involve compromises which detracts from the quality, and therefore level of enjoyment, of each, and have realised that, for pure observing, I will probably need another, larger scope, which may turn out to be a dob or large Newtonian since polar alignment won't be such an issue. 

Youtube is an incredible resource to find out anything you want to know about any aspect of observing imaging and processing.

Just to re-iterate, I'm no expert, just a keen learner who is maybe a bit ahead of you. I hope you find this useful and that this is the start of many years' happy stargazing.

Regards

StevieO