Starting out - Sky Watcher 200pds / HEQ5?

[fijidave]

Yes, I ve definitely ruled out the eq5. It was in budget but all the advice so far says the same, so I'm going to have to find deeper pockets!

[Erling G-P]

4 hours ago, fijidave said:

Do you know if there's a thread for showing images taken with a sw200pds?  I've seen one for the 130pds, but couldn't find one for the 200. (It's possible I need new glasses as well as a new telescope   )

I contemplated starting one, when someone made one with a little love for the 150 PDS.. 😉  (So no, I don't know about one)

Carole mentions FOV and that some of the big nebulas won't fit within the FOV with a 200 PDS.  No doubt true, but what you want in FOV depends on what you want to image (the most).  If going for galaxies, all bar two (M31 & M33) are positively tiny, even with a 200 PDS and a 'crop sensor' DSLR.  I posted M31 earlier, and as you can see, if you frame it diagonally, it almost fits within the FOV.  I'm attaching a lightly cropped image of M33 (cropped to remove bad vignetting in the corners).  As you can see, even this 2nd largest galaxy fits fine within the FOV.   For comparison, I've included M106, so you can see how relatively tiny it is in the FOV.  Same goes for planetary nebulae. Earlier I posted a cropped version of M27, which is the largest AFAIK, but here is the full field - lots of empty space (bar the stars..).

The smaller the FOV, the more demanding tracking and guiding gets of course.  I've tried imaging the Ring Nebula with a 2x barlow, and to get something even remotely useful, I had to reduce my sub exposures to 15 secs - with the 30 secs I have used otherwise, I could throw away all the subs.

[fijidave]

Thanks Erling G-P, that's really useful and again what fantastic photos!