First upgrade

[jackp93]

Hi all

at the moment I have a celestron 114 which is my first telescope but I’m not really seeing very much through it. So I’m thinking of upgrading. My plan is to get a celestron az goto mount and a six inch schmidt cassegrain. It’s going to be mainly for viewing but I would like to also give astrophotography a go. What are people’s opinion on this set up.

 

all the best 

 

Jack

[RayD]

Welcome to SGL, Jack.

The 6" SCT and AZ mount are fine for visual use, but if you are looking to venture in to AP then the AZ mount isn't going to be ideal, and an equatorial mount will serve you much better.

I would suggest contemplating a realistic budget and letting us know that, then you will receive lots of advice about what would be a good option within this budget.

 

[jackp93]

Hi ray 

 

Thanks for the welcome. The budget that I’m trying to stick to is between £500-£600 as I know this is a bit on the low side I have been looking at second hand mainly. I  did look at the eq3 with goto as I know this is better for astrophotography but that would blow the majority of my budget and I’m not going to be taking loads of pictures it was more to give it a go.

 

all the best

Jack  

[Cosmic Geoff]

The words 'astrophotography' and 'budget' don't belong in the same sentence, alas.

Should you get a Celestron C6 SCT with the SE GoTo mount, you will find that it's good for visual use, and entry level planetary astrophotography, but for deep space astrophotography, requiring a longer exposure and an ultra-stable mount, it's no good.  If you want to know why, track down one of my recent Mars images in the 'Planetary Imaging' section, which has parallel faint white lines at the bottom of the picture. These are a measure of how much the mount wanders during a 30-second video run, and how good Registax is at compensating.

You could consider getting a lightweight equatorial mount and attaching a camera directly to it, for widefield views.

[happy-kat]

Altaz mounts move in tiny left right up down movements so the object stays in the FOV but it will be rotating and this limits long exposures and the 6SE with it's long focal length exasperates this further. That mount is used by a couple members on the No EQ DSO Challenge thread but you have to work within the mount's limitations and I think they are using other smaller telescopes or camera lenses.