astrophotography

[Huw]

Hi All

I've been an amateur photographer for a number of years and always been interested in Astronomy, so on these dark winter nights I thought I'd combine the two and have a go at Astrphotography. My question is what scope?

I have looked at the Equinox series 80ED which is a bare model and the Celestron 80ED with a goto mount which seems a ready made set up but am not sure if this is a good setup for imaging or if setting the mount up is easy or a nightmare.

You might know a better setup and any advice would be very much appreciated. I would mostly attempt deep sky objects and would use a canon 350d or similar as my imager.

Thank You

Huw

[Psychobilly]

Hi Huw,

Firstly a Warm Welcome to SGL.

There are some bargains to be had at the moment the Celestron 80ED form Steve at FLO is an absolute steal and is a great scope for astrophotography.

The most important things for long exposure Astrophotography is a quality mount and they dont come cheap... some 2nd hand bargains around at the moment. The most popular mount without going to far overboard would be an EQ6 as this would eat the 80ED for breakfast and is capable of handling larger scopes of multiple scope setups in future...

A cheaper option would be a HEQ-5

The 350D is a good choice for imaging I use one and have modded mine as its dedicated to Astro and Terrestrial IR work...the mod removes filter from the front of the CCD increasignthe sensitivity the the important red Ha wavelengths 5 fold...its possible to have the camera modded so that it's still suitable for daytime use as well using clip in filters for a new filter on the sensor.

Billy...

[iancandler]

The CG5 GT mount is a good one Huw, though the motors can be a little noisy when its slewing towards targets.

I use one myself and I dont think you would be disappointed. Its certainly more than man enough for the scope your looking at using, in fact mine runs with both a 6" sct and a 66mm refractor on it without issue.

[Huw]

Thank you for your replies and will hopefully be posting some pictures in the not too distant future.

Huw