Equatorial or Synscan goto?

[Arran townsend]

Hi all, I'm in a bit of a mental pickle so I thought I'll ask experienced people. I have a German equatorial mount and I want to do astrophotography I was thinking of putting a motor on it, but I've also came across a skywatcher synscan az goto for around the same price, I was wondering which would be better for astrophotography (as a begginer) I know my stuff about them both but I have never done astrophotography with a decent tracking mount ( no hard feelings Bushnell northstar?). I'm more attracted to the goto mount but to me it looks oldish and I'm not sure about how accurate they are this is the mount telescope is not included

[geordie85]

That's an alt-az mount and will greatly restrict your imaging due to field rotation, although it is possible with very short exposures. 

For astrophotography you really want a tracking equatorial mount.

[Arran townsend]

3 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

That's an alt-az mount and will greatly restrict your imaging due to field rotation, although it is possible with very short exposures. 

For astrophotography you really want a tracking equatorial mount.

Do you thing an equatorial mount with skywatcher economy motor drive would be better, I'm just unsure how to polar align the mount as polaris isn't accurate enough

[adyj1]

Arran,

It depends what you mean by astrophotography... it might be a) take interesting pictures of some of the easier deep sky objects with relatively inexpensive equipment (and accepting the limitations that this means), or on the other hand it could be b) take detailed pictures of as many DSO's as you can, being willing to invest more and more in the hobby (we're talking many hundreds of pounds ++) as you get more experienced and get the better and better equipment needed for guiding, etc. 

In the case of a), then the alt-az mount will suffice and be quite user-friendly for finding your way around, whereas if you have any thoughts towards b) then you would probably be better off with the equatorial, which you will still have to upgrade as you fall deeper and deeper under the spell of AP ?

DISCLAIMER: I started with an alt-az mount because it was affordable, and did not have the budget for a larger eq mount. I was happy with the photographs I managed to take. After a couple of years I did graduate to an EQ5, but still keep my AZ as a grab'n'go mount.

Ady

 

[Arran townsend]

13 minutes ago, adyj1 said:

Arran,

It depends what you mean by astrophotography... it might be a) take interesting pictures of some of the easier deep sky objects with relatively inexpensive equipment (and accepting the limitations that this means), or on the other hand it could be b) take detailed pictures of as many DSO's as you can, being willing to invest more and more in the hobby (we're talking many hundreds of pounds ++) as you get more experienced and get the better and better equipment needed for guiding, etc. 

In the case of a), then the alt-az mount will suffice and be quite user-friendly for finding your way around, whereas if you have any thoughts towards b) then you would probably be better off with the equatorial, which you will still have to upgrade as you fall deeper and deeper under the spell of AP ?

DISCLAIMER: I started with an alt-az mount because it was affordable, and did not have the budget for a larger eq mount. I was happy with the photographs I managed to take. After a couple of years I did graduate to an EQ5, but still keep my AZ as a grab'n'go mount.

Ady

 

Thank you for the advice, I have a dslr and a telescope already it's just the matter of tracking, I would like to try my hand in photographing andromeda or orion  easier brighter objects 

[RolandKol]

Look for a second-hand HEQ5 (around £350), you will have a very nice start with such a mount

[adyj1]

What is your budget? 

And what is the scope?

[Arran townsend]

4 hours ago, adyj1 said:

What is your budget? 

And what is the scope?

My budget is around £50 and my scope is a traveller 76mm 70mm

[david_taurus83]

Hi, what mount do you have already? The bare minimum you need to add would be a motor on the RA axis and away you go. You can drift align using the DARV method with your DSLR.

[adyj1]

(I did wonder if that was the case. On SGL we must get better at finding out what a new poster really means when they say AP and what their budget is...) 

For me, the jump from cheap skywatcher equatorial to AZ was worth it. Sure, I grew out of it eventually, but that was about £600 later. The AZ does not have a very big payload though, so you are limiting yourself for the future to around a 130 newtonian or 90mm refracted (roughly speaking). 

After I bought the AZ, I eventually upgraded to a second-hand SW 1145p (under £100), moved the primary mirror for DSLR focusing, and was very happy with what I could achieve. . I was able to easily manage 60-second exposures on the AZ. 

Edit: you said 'looks old' - do you mean the mount you are looking to buy, or the technology? 

[happy-kat]

Welcome.

If the synscan altaz mount comes with the goto hand set for £50 I'd get that. Why well even though it has altaz limitations the goto opens up the fun of imaging oddities like comets and asteroids which can be hard to find. StarTools has some great tools to help deal with chromatic aberration which your 70mm will have on bright stars.

[Arran townsend]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Welcome.

If the synscan altaz mount comes with the goto hand set for £50 I'd get that. Why well even though it has altaz limitations the goto opens up the fun of imaging oddities like comets and asteroids which can be hard to find. StarTools has some great tools to help deal with chromatic aberration which your 70mm will have on bright stars.

Hi, the mount dont come with the goto controller, however I was thinking of using stellarium with the mount with my laptop

[Arran townsend]

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

(I did wonder if that was the case. On SGL we must get better at finding out what a new poster really means when they say AP and what their budget is...) 

For me, the jump from cheap skywatcher equatorial to AZ was worth it. Sure, I grew out of it eventually, but that was about £600 later. The AZ does not have a very big payload though, so you are limiting yourself for the future to around a 130 newtonian or 90mm refracted (roughly speaking). 

After I bought the AZ, I eventually upgraded to a second-hand SW 1145p (under £100), moved the primary mirror for DSLR focusing, and was very happy with what I could achieve. . I was able to easily manage 60-second exposures on the AZ. 

Edit: you said 'looks old' - do you mean the mount you are looking to buy, or the technology? 

To me the mount looks oldish, I could be wrong or judging a book by its cover or rather a altaz mount by its design

[Arran townsend]

3 minutes ago, Arran townsend said:

To me the mount looks oldish, I could be wrong or judging a book by its cover or rather a altaz mount by its design

I've found some specifications about the mount, I'm not sure I understand what it means when it says precision of tracking

[adyj1]

There are more modern AZ designs, but these are so new you don't see them 2nd-hand very often, and they will probably hold their £250+ price better. You pays your money...

IMHO, although dated, the AZ you are looking at is ok. It should track better than a cheap eq mount with the battery motor on RA. 

[happy-kat]

Altaz mount tracks by tiny left right up down movements so however acturate the mount does not track equatorial so the mount does not follow the earth's rotation hence when imaging star traling will show after an elapsed period of time measured in seconds accelerated by focal length. Often 30 seconds is achievable and lots of 30 second images stacked creates a nice final image.

 

[happy-kat]

Member @SteveNickolls started his imaging journey with that mount I think. You might like to read this thread here Link here

 

[happy-kat]

3 hours ago, Arran townsend said:

Hi, the mount dont come with the goto controller, however I was thinking of using stellarium with the mount with my laptop

There were two flavours of this mount, one with goto the other just tracked. I do not think a goto handset or other control can be added to the tracking only version.

[adyj1]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

There were two flavours of this mount, one with goto the other just tracked. I do not think a goto handset or other control can be added to the tracking only version.

Sorry, I missed that. No controller? But how do you align so you can track??

Arran, there's a reasonable-looking 1145p and AZ Goto up for grabs for £85 on the for-sale is if is anywhere close to you... 

 

[happy-kat]

My skywatcher Virtuoso tracking mount just needs to have the mount head to face the right way and the telescope point at Polaris with 0 degree elevation and turn on, it tracks from that. (I had already instructed the mount as to what my local latitude was (it has buttons on the mount) and I have not clue how you do that on the mount being discussed)

The synscan goto unit for £50 needs communication and power to move really I think.

[RobertI]

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

My skywatcher Virtuoso tracking mount just needs to have the mount head to face the right way and the telescope point at Polaris with 0 degree elevation and turn on, it tracks from that.

I learn something new every day! 

[SteveNickolls]

14 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Member @SteveNickolls started his imaging journey with that mount I think. You might like to read this thread here Link here

Thanks happy-kat, yes the SkyWatcher Synscan Alt-Az mount is a decent start to the whole business on a low budget (if you can get a decnet one second hand) though maybe now a Star Adventurer mount would serve you better later on but it's still priced way beyond £50 I'm afraid. With careful use the Synscan has given me exposures up to 60 seconds with most frames being 'keepers'. The mount did show its design limitations at 70 seconds with a dramatic drop in useful frames. As you know imaging can become expensive but an Alt-Az mount can be a great introduction to the hobby (you can test your toes in the deep waters) and it can be the difference between reading about DSO imaging and getting experience actually doing it. Your learning will come in useful when you get to save up for more expensive equipment, and it's all part of the journey.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Cheers,
Steve