Trying to be sensible!

[Psychology]

Hi All

 

I've had the Heritage 130p for nearly a year now and had have some great views with it. However, the astrophotography bug is biting and so I am looking at buying a new mount scope etc. 

Now it's my 50th birthday soon and my wife said she will give me £500 for a new telescope 

So this is my thought process so I don't buy the wrong equipment.

1. Get "Making Every Photon Count"  (yeah it arrived this morning)

2. Get a good solid mount such as EQ5 pro or HEQ5 pro. I want goto I think as I would like to mount the Heritage 130p on it for visual as well. 

3. I have a canon 60d so at first would like to use this on the mount to start with and I also have a good selection of lenses. I have photoshop CC.

4. Get a new scope possibly a 130pds.

5. Eventually add guiding.

Does this seem okay. 

[Chris]

Sounds very sensible to me. You can start off using your camera and lenses (the shorter the focal length the easier it is to track the star), and when you've got you confidence up with imaging move onto longer focal lengths compared to lenses such as the 130pds.

The 130pds is a great budget astrograph, I've had a couple of them over the years

 

[laudropb]

I would definitely go for the HEQ5.

[Tinker1947]

Its the Mount that needs to be good, the HEQ5 is good for the money.......

[CraigT82]

Heritage 130p might not be a good idea on an EQ as I'm not sure you can fit tube rings with it being a truss tube, but I've never tried so you might manage it?!  130pds is capable of producing some stunning images though! 

[Chris]

25 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Heritage 130p might not be a good idea on an EQ as I'm not sure you can fit tube rings with it being a truss tube, but I've never tried so you might manage it?!  130pds is capable of producing some stunning images though! 

The 130p Heritage has a Vixen dovetail attached directly to the lower section of the tube so I guess he could get away with it if he doesn't mind the occasional awkward eyepiece position

[Jim78154]

Sensible and astrophotography do not belong in the same sentence, especially when discussing costs. That said, I do believe that you are on the right track.

[baggywrinkle]

Good way to proceed.

[Psychology]

11 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Heritage 130p might not be a good idea on an EQ as I'm not sure you can fit tube rings with it being a truss tube, but I've never tried so you might manage it?!  130pds is capable of producing some stunning images though! 

Realise it might be awkward but as someone says it has a dovetail and it's only a stopgap until I get a 130pds.

 

10 hours ago, Jim78154 said:

Sensible and astrophotography do not belong in the same sentence, especially when discussing costs. That said, I do believe that you are on the right track.

Haha, I'm beginning to realise this, originally looked at an EQ3 pro but people seemed to discount it and even the EQ5. So mount alone has gone from £379 to £749 

[Mr Spock]

If you are going to use a 130 for ap you will also need a coma corrector - that's another expense you need to fator in.