OK, i have £400ish quid to spend on AP. Help me spend it.

[MKHACHFE]

HI guys/gals

 

So, i just sold my XT8 and accessories as i am getting much more fun out of AP.  So, i have £400 at my disposal. I can maybe add another £100-£150 to that. But absolutely no more and i dont wan to save it for something later. Basically, i want to spend it NOW. Before xmas. 

My current seup:

 

Canon 4000d unmodified

Star Adventurer 2i mount

Rubbish (REALLY REALLY rubbish) tripod

70-300mm f5.6 canon lens

50mm f2.8 canon lens

28mm f1.8 canon lens

 

A few things to note:

 

- I am happy with my mount for now. I dont need an EQ5 or HEQ5

- Im not interested in a faster lens for the moment. The 70-300 has served me very very well so far and i will upgrade sometime next year.

 

What im considering:

- Evostar 72ED plus necessary flattener and adapters (this is at the limit of budget). Unfortunately, i cant seem to find one in stock in the UK. 

So i thought i'd dip my toe into CCD/CMOS AP with a:

-ZWO ASI 385MC USB 3.0 Colour + better tripod

or a 

-ZWO ASI 224MC USB 3.0 Colour+better tripod+CLS LP filter. 

or just buy a

-modified canon DSLR

 

I did think about a 130PDS but that coupled with my DSLR is just below the 5kg load capacity of my mount and im not confident about such a setup.

 

So...the floor is yours. You have my setup and £400. Taking into consideration what ive said, what would YOU buy tomorrow?

 

Thanks

 

 

[johngm]

Problem is, most Astrogear is in short supply at the moment, with weeks if not months in some cases, lead times. As for buying a modified Canon, if your happy with the one you've got, then why not just send that away to get modified ? I paid around £100 to get my 600D modified, and was told 2 weeek turn around time, but had it back in a week..

 http://www.astronomiser.co.uk/

John

[johngm]

Just to add, with your budget, your not going to gain anything by buying a dedicated CCD or CMOS camera. You would require a Pro cooled version to see any benefit over a modified DSLR, then your looking a tripling your Budget

John

[tooth_dr]

Just because the money is burning a hole in your pocket doesn’t mean you must spend it!

However as an option have you considered an autoguiding setup.  It will only work in RA with the SA but would be transferable to a new mount in the future.

[Laurin Dave]

A tripod, see what improvements that brings, then have another think ..  there’s no rush, it’ll all be back again next year and as others have said stuff is in short supply and maybe QC has dropped 

[Kyle Allen]

I think you’d see the most improvement from guiding not the other things you’re considering. You can use it to accurately polar align your mount with Sharpcap Pro and it’ll allow you to do much longer exposures without star trailing by correcting periodic error. 

This’ll work fine: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-mini-finder-guider-asi120mm-bundle.html

Upgrading your tripod would be a good idea. 

[Skipper Billy]

I would spend at least half your budget on a decent tripod - it doesn't matter what is on top of it you will always have poor images if your tripod is wobbling about.

The rest of the budget I would spend on diesel to get to dark sites - nothing improves images as much as truly dark skies which I guess you don't have in Biggin Hill ????

[david_taurus83]

Have a look on ebay. Good quality used tripods like Manfrotto for < £100. Id also look at used 600D cameras, body only £150/200. You can then send that off to be modified for say £100. There's a big difference after modifying the camera! If you could stretch the budget again (sell the 4000D?) you could buy a decent clip filter for the camera to help with LP. 

[StevieDvd]

How about a nice Berlebach tripod like this

 

[newbie alert]

Personally I wouldn't put a 130 newt or a 72mm frac on a star adventurer,  what mount was you using with the 8inch?

For me a 385 and a 224 are planetary cams

So for me I'd get a better tripod, and if you're shoot emission nebulae then either get yours modded or buy a modded camera

[MKHACHFE]

14 hours ago, johngm said:

Problem is, most Astrogear is in short supply at the moment, with weeks if not months in some cases, lead times. As for buying a modified Canon, if your happy with the one you've got, then why not just send that away to get modified ? I paid around £100 to get my 600D modified, and was told 2 weeek turn around time, but had it back in a week..

 http://www.astronomiser.co.uk/

John

Yes, it's really quite frustrating how everything seems to be out of stock . 

Problem with sending the DSLR to be fixed is that my wife isn't that keen as we use it on holidays etc...

Maybe I can convince her as we won't be going anywhere anytime soon really. 

Cheers

[MKHACHFE]

14 hours ago, johngm said:

Just to add, with your budget, your not going to gain anything by buying a dedicated CCD or CMOS camera. You would require a Pro cooled version to see any benefit over a modified DSLR, then your looking a tripling your Budget

John

Interesting. Thanks for the reply.

I only considered these cameras to dip my toe into CMOS AP...I'm not expecting incredible results, but then I wasn't either when I bought the 4000d and 70-300mm f5.6 and have had great success with it on far more targets than I ever thought possible.

Cheers

 

Edited November 21, 2020 by MKHACHFE

[Gfamily]

One of my astro club members mounted a TS 60 scope + dSLR on the Star Adventurer and used a repurposed 6x30 finder as a guidescope (mounted on the counterweight bar).

Might be do-able within budget.

[MKHACHFE]

12 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Just because the money is burning a hole in your pocket doesn’t mean you must spend it!

However as an option have you considered an autoguiding setup.  It will only work in RA with the SA but would be transferable to a new mount in the future.

I did consider that. Problem is that I live in a bottle 6 location an so, I won't really benefit from very long exposure times. At 30s, my lights are currently mostly light pollution as is.

[MKHACHFE]

12 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

One of my astro club members mounted a TS 60 scope + dSLR on the Star Adventurer and used a repurposed 6x30 finder as a guidescope (mounted on the counterweight bar).

Might be do-able within budget.

Interesting. I'll look into this. Thanks

[MKHACHFE]

3 hours ago, newbie alert said:

Personally I wouldn't put a 130 newt or a 72mm frac on a star adventurer,  what mount was you using with the 8inch?

For me a 385 and a 224 are planetary cams

So for me I'd get a better tripod, and if you're shoot emission nebulae then either get yours modded or buy a modded camera

No no, it was an XT8 dobsonian. Visual only.

I am definitely leaning towards the better tripod, cls filter and possible modding.

 

Cheers

[MKHACHFE]

9 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

How about a nice Berlebach tripod like this

sorry for double post but SGL  went funny when I posted the answer and said too many connections.

A new tripod is definitely necessary. Mine is so bad it would make most of you guys gasp. Lol 🤣

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[MKHACHFE]

14 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

How about a nice Berlebach tripod like this

 

To be honest, considering the results i have had so far with the rubbish tripod i'm using, i'm not sure i need such an expensive one at this point, maybe in a few years when i have an HEQ5 and a better setup. Thanks for the suggestion though, bookmarked!

 

Cheers

[tooth_dr]

10 hours ago, MKHACHFE said:

I did consider that. Problem is that I live in a bottle 6 location an so, I won't really benefit from very long exposure times. At 30s, my lights are currently mostly light pollution as is.

You should buy a LPF and start guiding. Ive attached a screenshot of my old house location - I used a CLS filter and took 300s subs - without it 30s was washed out.

So £400:

Skywatcher finderscope with adapter for T mount camera, ZWO 120 camera - FLO have a package of this

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-cameras/sky-watcher-9x50-finder-adapter-zwo-asi120mm-bundle.html

 LPF - £150 for the CLS CCD ( or a little more for other brands and less for cheaper versions.

Leaves you a few quid for brackets or adapters.  I’m not sure what attachment you use but you could attach the finderscope to the L-bracket via a finder shoe holder:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/finder-mounting-shoe.html

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by tooth_dr

[Skipper Billy]

Don't forget about a decent tripod or everything else is totally irrelevant 😉 

[tooth_dr]

7 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

Don't forget about a decent tripod or everything else is totally irrelevant 😉 

Absolutely. There is an extra £100-150 in the budget too. That would get something decent?

[MKHACHFE]

14 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

Don't forget about a decent tripod or everything else is totally irrelevant 😉 

I agree, but to be fair, I think I've gotten verydecent results with the rubbish one I'm currently using, so I'm not sure I want to spend so much on a new tripod at the moment. Maybe next year.

Cheers

[MKHACHFE]

19 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

You should buy a LPF and start guiding. Ive attached a screenshot of my old house location - I used a CLS filter and took 300s subs - without it 30s was washed out.

So £400:

Skywatcher finderscope with adapter for T mount camera, ZWO 120 camera - FLO have a package of this

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-cameras/sky-watcher-9x50-finder-adapter-zwo-asi120mm-bundle.html

 LPF - £150 for the CLS CCD ( or a little more for other brands and less for cheaper versions.

Leaves you a few quid for brackets or adapters.  I’m not sure what attachment you use but you could attach the finderscope to the L-bracket via a finder shoe holder:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/finder-mounting-shoe.html

 

That amazing. 300s from there. I will very seriously consider and look into what you suggested. Thank you very much for posting that.

 

Great to know I'm not limited to 30s subs.

[tooth_dr]

3 hours ago, MKHACHFE said:

That amazing. 300s from there. I will very seriously consider and look into what you suggested. Thank you very much for posting that.

 

Great to know I'm not limited to 30s subs.

Before and after with the CLS filter, 35mm lens F5.6, 30s exposure 

 

 

 

[MKHACHFE]

21 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Before and after with the CLS filter, 35mm lens F5.6, 30s exposure 

 

 

 

Wow!