Theft Woes - Advice Requested

[daemon]

Hi All,

I recently had a break in at my home in southern Spain. I had naively thought that my astro-gear would be of little interest to thieves, as they would be more likely to go after items that are easier to off load for cash. It seems I was wrong. Not only did they help themselves to a 42" TV, 3 flat screen monitors and a mountain bike, they also helped themselves to:-

• Skywatcher HEQ-5 Mount Head (which I had recently carefully belt modded)
  • They decided that the tripod and counterweights were of no interest to them so kindly left these for me. Ha!
• Skywatcher Evostar ED80 Scope
  • My imaging refractor that has served me well. They left behind the focal reducer if anyone wants one at a knock down price?
• Vixen 90M Achromat
  • I used this for casual visual fun. Sadly this was the most sentimental loss as it was my first telescope and had become more of a family friend. Again my thoughtful friends left the dew-shield behind so my wife is planning to turn that into a candle holder as a sentimental reminder of our faithful old Vixen.

Enough of my woes - I am seeking some suggestions as to suitable replacements for my imaging rig. It is not a great time to be buying astro gear, and the lead times for many items from FLO and other web-sites are depressingly long. I hope to be able to eventually re-coup some insurance money (not holding my breath) but I really need to think about replacements and possible upgrades.

• Mount - my preferred upgrade option for the HEQ-5 was the EQ6R-Pro (which I have in the UK) but this is not available for some time. There seem to be a lot of AZ-EQ6 GT's available and I am seriously considering this. I would be interested in hearing peoples thoughts as to the pros and cons of this versus the EQ6R-Pro.
• Scope - I enjoyed my ED80 but have always drooled over the ESPRIT models. There was an Esprit 100 on the FLO site which I was hovering over the "Order Now" button for, but it is now gone. Probably a good thing as far as my budget is concerned! Does anyone have alternate suggestions?

I image mainly, with an ASI1600 Mono Camera with EFW and other gizmos, so I need to watch my payload. My UK rig has a SW150PDS reflector on it (which I am reasonably happy with). For the replacement in Spain I probably want another frac for deep sky imaging with a lowish focal ratio.

If anyone wants to chip in with suggestions I'd be happy to hear them. Thanks for listening!

Daemon

[Lee_P]

Sorry to hear about the thefts!

I used to image with an 80ED too, and am now using an Askar FRA400 (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/askar-telescopes/askar-fra400-f5-6-72mm-quintuplet-apo-astrograph.html) It's a good upgrade to the 80ED, and reasonably priced for the quality. I wrote a review for it in the members' equipment reviews section. Looks like there's a long lead-time for it on FLO though.

[daemon]

6 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Sorry to hear about the thefts!

I used to image with an 80ED too, and am now using an Askar FRA400 (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/askar-telescopes/askar-fra400-f5-6-72mm-quintuplet-apo-astrograph.html) It's a good upgrade to the 80ED, and reasonably priced for the quality. I wrote a review for it in the members' equipment reviews section. Looks like there's a long lead-time for it on FLO though.

Thanks Lee! That certainly looks like a nice upgrade and I'll look at your review in due course.

Thinking on it, I suppose the mount is my first priority as I have my ZWO cam and EFW currently attached to a Samyang 135mm lens, so I do have widefield imaging capability. Just need a base!! 🙂