Which way to go for planetary imaging

[David Smith]

I fancy having a go at a bit of planetary imaging, nothing too serious at this stage as I suspect I will never become a dedicated imager. Consequently I do not want to spend a lot of money at this stage and hope to be able to use mostly existing kit (buying of an HEQ5 or something in the £500+ range is not an option). I plan to use the mono QHY5II camera initially just to see how I get on and then I can look at colour options if I really get into it.

My quandary is mount and scope.

The Revelation dob is out of the picture as it is dob mounted and I cannot reach focus with a camera in the focuser (not enough inward travel).

The Evostar 120 gives quite a bit of CA visually and even at 1000mm focal length the image scale will be very small (I do have and could use a barlow). As for the mount, the CG-4 is un-driven meaning hand tracking is my only current option

So, do I

1. Add the dual axis drives to the CG-4 and use the Evostar on this ~£130

2. Spend a little more and grab myself a Skymax 127 on a supa-trak mount ~£300

The latter scope would be better from a CA perspective but I am not sure on the stability of the mount. The former would be cheaper and probably more flexible in the long run. I could then pick up a Mak OTA later if I decide to pursue this further.

I suspect I know the answer to this question but one of you clever people may come up with an alternative that I had not thought of!

Appreciate your input

[Freddie]

I would have a think about this before spending too much/anything as all the planets are really badly positioned for quite some time now.

[David Smith]

Even Jupiter?

[Freddie]

Missed the best this year as it is heading away fast now. Next year it doesn't make it above 50 deg.