Hello from Wokingham

[imakebeer]

Hi All,

I've been dipping in and out of astronomy over the last couple of years - turns out it involves a lot less washing up than homebrewing! 😁 Just recently I've been getting more into it again as I've started to get my head around planetary astrophotography & lucky imaging, and also started experimenting with star trails photography - will post up some pics somewhere more appropriate.

Quite basic equipment so far:

• SkyWatcher 900mm/70mm refractor
• EQ1 mount
• Nikon D5500 & Svbony eyepiece projection adapter

Looking to upgrade to a 150mm Newtonian and more substantial EQ mount but trying to get a look at one first before I part with my hard-earned.

Also got a small-ish but decent pair of binoculars which are surprisingly handy! I've also picked up a used Canon 450D which although older might be better than the Nikon for lucky imaging, but not had a chance to try it yet.

Interested to try my hand at a bit of everything, it planets, deep sky, visual observing or photography - all has its own appeal!

Cheers!

[Floater]

Welcome. Glad you said hello.

Hope you have lots of fun - and from your post it seems as if you’re already doing that. 🙂

[LaurenceT]

Welcome to this forum. You say that you want to have a look at an EQ mount, I have an EQ5 mount, certainly not the strongest around but then neither am I!

I'm fairly close to you in Camberley so if you want to have a look at mine I'd be happy to oblige.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @imakebeer and welcome to SGL....and not to far from you as I am in Lower Earley.

[Stu]

Welcome to the forum @imakebeer. I just so happen to be in Wokingham tonight. I stay at my parent’s house (where I grew up) near Joel Park on a Wednesday night most weeks, otherwise down in Somerset now.

Weather pretty awful here tonight isn’t it!!

[imakebeer]

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

Weather pretty awful here tonight isn’t it!!

On the plus side at least SWMBO is happy this evening that for once I haven't said "I'm just popping outside for a bit to do some telescoping" 😂

[barbulo]

Hi and welcome to SGL

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

[imakebeer]

15 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

Welcome to this forum. You say that you want to have a look at an EQ mount, I have an EQ5 mount, certainly not the strongest around but then neither am I!

I'm fairly close to you in Camberley so if you want to have a look at mine I'd be happy to oblige.

Thanks for the offer 👍 I have an EQ1 at the moment so I understand how to use an EQ mount and what it's doing, but I imagine the EQ3 & 5 are rather more weighty and so less portable. But by home much?

I was looking at your list of gear in your signature block - do you by any chance mount the Explorer 130PDS on your EQ5?

Specifically my current top of the list is an Explorer 150PDS on an EQ3/5 GoTo, but I'd like to see one in action just to be sure before I fork out. The scope performance will be dictated by location and seeing at the time, but I'm more interested to see in exactly which postcode the eyepiece will end up depending on the orientation of the scope! 😂

Also on my list (and still looking at your signature block 😉) was the Skymax 127 Maksutov (thermal issues? Newtonian delivers more bang for buck?) and Startravel 120T (refractors = chromatic aberration?)

[dave34]

Welcome to the lounge.

[LaurenceT]

1 hour ago, imakebeer said:

Thanks for the offer 👍 I have an EQ1 at the moment so I understand how to use an EQ mount and what it's doing, but I imagine the EQ3 & 5 are rather more weighty and so less portable. But by home much?

I was looking at your list of gear in your signature block - do you by any chance mount the Explorer 130PDS on your EQ5?

Specifically my current top of the list is an Explorer 150PDS on an EQ3/5 GoTo, but I'd like to see one in action just to be sure before I fork out. The scope performance will be dictated by location and seeing at the time, but I'm more interested to see in exactly which postcode the eyepiece will end up depending on the orientation of the scope! 😂

Also on my list (and still looking at your signature block 😉) was the Skymax 127 Maksutov (thermal issues? Newtonian delivers more bang for buck?) and Startravel 120T (refractors = chromatic aberration?)

My EQ5 copes very well with the 130PDS. With the 150PDS plus all the ancillary bits of kit you will be probably over the load limit of the EQ5 of 6.5Kg. My camera, Asiair and guide scope add up to 5.3Kg.

A quote from that thread:

"My first set up was the EQ5 and SW 150pds and I quickly realised that it was too heavy when the camera and guiding was all attached"

[imakebeer]

@LaurenceT I had a feeling you might say something like that.

What's really confusing for a noob like me is on the one hand that's not the first time I've read experienced folks saying that even the EQ5 with or without GoTo isn't up to much (and it ain't exactly cheap!). Yet on the other hand FLO will happily sell you a bundle of the Explorer 200P + EQ5, or the Explorer 150P/PL/PDS + EQ3 or 5.

I don't doubt what you and other seasoned astronomers say - you're speaking from personal experience afterall. But likewise I don't get the impression that FLO are a bunch of cowboys who will sell you complete garbage (and their forum is lovely by the way 😁).

It's honestly starting to seem like I can have a small refractor for £200 or pay 10-15x that for a full setup and there is literally no middle ground at all ☹️

I refuse to be defeated though! 😜

[allworlds]

Welcome to the forum.

Deep-sky imaging is more demanding on the mount than visual use, both because you're usually adding more weight and because you need higher precision and stability. That goes some way to explaining why Skywatcher and FLO sell telescopes on relatively light mounts.

[Stu]

49 minutes ago, imakebeer said:

@LaurenceT I had a feeling you might say something like that.

What's really confusing for a noob like me is on the one hand that's not the first time I've read experienced folks saying that even the EQ5 with or without GoTo isn't up to much (and it ain't exactly cheap!). Yet on the other hand FLO will happily sell you a bundle of the Explorer 200P + EQ5, or the Explorer 150P/PL/PDS + EQ3 or 5.

I don't doubt what you and other seasoned astronomers say - you're speaking from personal experience afterall. But likewise I don't get the impression that FLO are a bunch of cowboys who will sell you complete garbage (and their forum is lovely by the way 😁).

It's honestly starting to seem like I can have a small refractor for £200 or pay 10-15x that for a full setup and there is literally no middle ground at all ☹️

I refuse to be defeated though! 😜

Not sure if this is of any use, but it’s a long running thread about imaging with the 130PDS. Normal recommendations are for HEQ5, but I’m sure you could achieve good stuff with a 130/EQ5 combo, there may be some examples in the thread.

As for the EQ5/200p bundle, I guess it’s about hitting a price point and for visual use it would be fine, and some people do use them for imaging but with limitations in terms of stability/accuracy in windy conditions etc.

[LaurenceT]

53 minutes ago, imakebeer said:

@LaurenceT I had a feeling you might say something like that.

What's really confusing for a noob like me is on the one hand that's not the first time I've read experienced folks saying that even the EQ5 with or without GoTo isn't up to much (and it ain't exactly cheap!). Yet on the other hand FLO will happily sell you a bundle of the Explorer 200P + EQ5, or the Explorer 150P/PL/PDS + EQ3 or 5.

I don't doubt what you and other seasoned astronomers say - you're speaking from personal experience afterall. But likewise I don't get the impression that FLO are a bunch of cowboys who will sell you complete garbage (and their forum is lovely by the way 😁).

It's honestly starting to seem like I can have a small refractor for £200 or pay 10-15x that for a full setup and there is literally no middle ground at all ☹️

I refuse to be defeated though! 😜

The kits you refer to sold by retailers are within spec for visual astronomy, it's when the extra kit required for astrophotography is added then the mounts can be overloaded so it can be said that retailers are being somewhat disingenuous in their marketing of scopes/mount combinations for example in the Skywatcher PDS range. I spent many years as a hobbyist wildlife photographer, many times I was asked what kit I used to produce a certain image and there much anguish from beginners when I told them the cost of lens/body exceeded £5000, if you want to play the game at a higher level then you need to stump up the cash. I sold virtually all my photo gear to get into astrophotography 2 years ago and I'm still at a quite basic level for gear, I won't be going any higher!

My combination of EQ5 and 130PDS satisfies me both for visual and astrophotography although I haven't done much of the latter with the 130PDS yet.

[imakebeer]

@allworlds @Stu @LaurenceT - thanks for your comments, and I will take a look through those threads 👍

What I'm getting is it's a bit of "your mileage may vary", "you get what you pay for" and "keep your expectations vs. budget" in check. At the same time I'm sure there are people out there who would tell me I can't possibly do planetary imaging with the gear I have, to which I would respectfully disagree. Perhaps it's more a case of spending twice as much won't generate images twice as good? Or to put it another way, if you images twice as good you need to spend 10x (I'm guessing) more.

Just looking out the window at the clear blue skies as the sun goes down and hoping 🙏. And then checking the weather forecast and seeing we're in for another deluge! Why sky gods, why! 😫😂

[fwm891]

Hi @imakebeer

Welcome to the forum.

I used to live in Woodley under the orange glow!

Don't dissmiss the secondhand market either this forum or UKABS that way you should get a higher spec kit for your dosh...

[imakebeer]

2 hours ago, fwm891 said:

Hi @imakebeer

Welcome to the forum.

I used to live in Woodley under the orange glow!

Don't dissmiss the secondhand market either this forum or UKABS that way you should get a higher spec kit for your dosh...

Umm... UKABS? You're gonna have to help me (and Google) out on that one 🤔

[LaurenceT]

UKAstoBuyandSell website

Edited November 3, 2022 by LaurenceT

[fwm891]

As @LaurenceT said 👍

[Moon-Monkey]

Very interesting to see some faces on here local to me I’m just outside Newbury in Compton we should do a meet up here on the ridgeway Bortle 4 I would say you can see the Milky Way on a good night from my back garden 🙂 keep doing what your doing and enjoy 🙂🙂🙂🙂

[wookie1965]

A warm welcome to SGL

[LaurenceT]

14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

@allworlds @Stu @LaurenceT - thanks for your comments, and I will take a look through those threads 👍

What I'm getting is it's a bit of "your mileage may vary", "you get what you pay for" and "keep your expectations vs. budget" in check. At the same time I'm sure there are people out there who would tell me I can't possibly do planetary imaging with the gear I have, to which I would respectfully disagree. Perhaps it's more a case of spending twice as much won't generate images twice as good? Or to put it another way, if you images twice as good you need to spend 10x (I'm guessing) more.

Just looking out the window at the clear blue skies as the sun goes down and hoping 🙏. And then checking the weather forecast and seeing we're in for another deluge! Why sky gods, why! 😫😂

Is your setup this one?

Sky-Watcher CAPRICORN-70 (EQ1) 70mm (2.75") f/900 REFRACTOR TELESCOPE - Optical Vision Ltd

[imakebeer]

11 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

Is your setup this one?

Sky-Watcher CAPRICORN-70 (EQ1) 70mm (2.75") f/900 REFRACTOR TELESCOPE - Optical Vision Ltd

Yep, that's the one. Why'd you ask?

[LaurenceT]

36 minutes ago, imakebeer said:

Yep, that's the one. Why'd you ask?

If you follow that link there is a lunar image taken with your kit.