NEED HELP! I Inherited brothers SCT C8 Experiment time!

[JACK7]

I have 2 Refractors and a Newt, I always wanted to hobby out on a SCT and my brother literally said here you go! He was moving to Florida and he don't care no more"  SO I now own a simple AVX and a C8 also some decent eye pieces Baaders & and a starsense camera still new in the box" ```I wanna go the OAG route with this scope and he also gave me a ZWO120mm and a ZWO435MC in the box" My QUESTION IS? what all do i need to make this feasible and doable, I tested it out the tracking on  various objects till 3 am it was fun"   as it all worked nicely and very nice clarity on targets, So it all seems good to go" and the equipment doesn't even look used at all"

        SO any advice of what else i will need to do AP with a SCT @ F10 W/ Focal reducer would be awesome!!!! I realize it is not the greatest for AP, but with the focal reducers i got already and one in a 6.3 think im good on the costly stuff" accept for the OAG purchase" any input would be great! I just wanna do AP with this and blow my brothers brain up for Giving me about $4500.00 worth of stuff thinking it was a waste of time!! LOL, any advice would be awesome!!! Cant find much specs on the common C8 only the HD, Thanks guys111

Edited December 8, 2021 by JACK7

[NGC 1502]

Hi JACK7 from across the pond👍    Lots of folk on here to give advice.  But as your question is about imaging maybe you’d get more of a response if you repost in the imaging section.

Hoping you get the advice you need.

Ed.

[JACK7]

Thanks ur correct 

[JOC]

@JACK7 I have spotted another post you have made in a forum about SGL Imaging Day - you are still in the wrong place.  There are a number of forums on imaging here: https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/8-imaging/ you might find the top one on that page is the one that might be useful to you:  https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/54-imaging-discussion/

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by JOC

[Cornelius Varley]

This thread now moved to beginner's imaging section.

[jacko61]

Hi.

The C8 SCT is (IMHO) a great scope for imaging small objects. Although I've recently been concentrating on M31 with my William optics ZS73, my forays into AP earlier this year were done using my C8 SCT  (0.63 reducer) and Canon DSLR ... BUT I was guiding with an SVBONY 60mm guidescope and ZWO ASI290MM mini and was getting great results in PHD2.  Here's M13 and M101 showing some nice round stars from 180 second subs,  and also my first attempt at Jupiter using an ASI533MC pro astrocam.   Backfocus from the threads on the reducer to the camera chip is 105mm - took me ages to track that little snippet of info down. 

It's well worth fitting Celestron's focus motor - Focus Motor | Celestron - manual focussing on the C8 is a hit-or-miss affair but the motor makes it as smooth as satin (although you may need to update the Nexstar handset to the Nexstar + depending on the age of the mount (although the AVX is a more recent version of my ASGT so it should have nexstar + anyway).  As the Nexstar + has a miniUSB port, it's a straightforward job to connect the scope up to CPWI to simplify the alignment and goto process and also allow PHD2 to implement pulse guiding instead of ST4. 

For visual. I fit a 2" Baader clicklock. All my eyepieces and barlow are 2" and I find the views through the C8 to be superb. 

Graeme