OTA and DSO Cam - Help me spend some money.

[Coastliner]

Hi All,

I think I'm going to be forced into retirement soon so I'd like to expand my setup before the money runs out!

To the kit in my sig I think I'd like to add a decent refractor, something like an ED80,  (80 for portability) and a half-decent astro camera for DSO AP. I believe I should get a field flattener for the ota as well, if a flattener is really necessary for someone at my level? The Altair Astro GPCAM will do me for planetary, unless a DSO cam will do planetary as well.

My budget will be £1500 in total, so I'm being realistic and not expecting high-end here.

Any suggestions?

Tx,

Neil.

[riklaunim]

As for cameras - DS setup needs a guider, and a guide cam can also be a planetary camera if picked correctly (GPCam is one of the options).

You can pick a ED/APO refractor with dedicated field flattener or just pick a refractor with a built in flattener like the TSAPO65Q. If you will go with a dedicated DS camera like one of mono Atiks (314L+ or newer, 320E) then picking small refractors also helps to get nice field of view while making the setup even lighter and easier to use. That AZ-EQ5 should easily handle such small setup. Telescopes like GSO 6" RC are also an option for the future if you would want to target small objects at higher resolutions.

[Coastliner]

Thanks for this, that tube is very tempting!